|
Book Review
Post-colonial Indian theatre
GOWRI RAMNARAYAN
THEATRES OF INDEPENDENCE — Drama, Theory, and Urban Performance in India since 1947: Aparna Bhargava Dharwadker; Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 695.
Impeccable scholarship marks every page of this dense text. Also, it is obviously driven by passion, both for the subject, and for the painstaking research into it. This work describes, discusses and analyses the “Theatres of Independence”, of urban performance in India (1947-2005), both in theory and in practice. A short period? Yes, but the forms, languages, craft, socio-political-cultural impulsions, impactive colonial legacy and inherited local traditions a
re mind-bogglingly varied. Attention to details retains those non-classifiable diversities to shape a seminal work on modern Indian theatre.
The author sees both the wood and the trees. Much thought has gone into her choice of words. The packed pages refuse to tolerate fuzz.
Post-colonial grid
The first part frames modern Indian theatre on a post-colonial grid. (“The apparent collapse of historical categories is itself a post-colonial symptom that must be thoroughly historicized.”) The author explains that she not only wants to make this theatre visible internationally as a critical object through theoretical and interpretive procedures, but to define the new dramatic canon by examining its textual and performative conditions and contexts, and the historical-ideological reasons for its critical marginality.
She is aware of the problems in this approach. “Postcolonial criticism is discursive and textual, valorises migrancy, whereas theatre is performative, and rooted, localised in many specific places.” Moreover, nothing is truly national in India unless it is truly regional. And no single theoretician or practitioner can claim an insider’s perspective on all regional manifestations of theatre. True, Dharwadker’s focus is pan-Indian, but not exhaustive. It dwells more on the theatre-rich regions. However, treating texts and theatres as interdependent activities in the many languages and regional genres, does lead her to evolve her comfort zone in pluralities, and therefore to interpret as well as inform.
Genres
Part Two deals with specific genres growing from native myth, history, folk narrative and socio-political experience in links between drama Indian and Western. She traces the primal connections between the past and the present in modern theatre, as in Adya Rangacharya (Kelu Janamejaya) and Mohan Rakesh (Lehron Ke Rajhans), or history metaphorised by Vijay Tendulkar (Ghashiram Kotwal) and Girish Karnad (Tughlaq).
The linguistic-geographic recasting of classical plays (Kalidasa/Bhasa) by K.N.Panikkar in Kerala and Ratan Thiyam in Manipur, transform their content, with radical meanings for an urgent immediate present. Such productions recreate new import and a wholly new field of references. In particular, Mahabharata’s ambivalence makes it malleable to every need across time and space from Andha Yug to Peter Brooks’ morality play.
The reader realises that such reframings on the proscenium or street, strengthen theatre, not only as a means of discovering cultural identities, both local and universal, but as a tool of protest and resistance. Perhaps, foster a better grasp of the lore of good and evil in life.
Illustrations
Dharwadker’s discourse is full of illustrations. Rakesh’s “One Day in Ashadha”, the first major realistic play of the 1950s, demystifies history, humanises myth, and deals radically with gender issues. Baki Itihas (Badal Sircar) and Tughlaq (Girish Karnad) deconstruct archetypes and history with disenchantment and irony. Kanyaadaan (Vijay Tendulkar), Wada Chirebandi (Mahesh Elkunchwar), and Doongaji House (Cyrus Mistry) shift the struggle, violence, disillusionment and apathy to the home. While tracing the general trends of the times influencing and infecting creative minds, she does not fail to observe the particularities in style and intent. This method demands skippings-barred, close reading.
The space allotted to alternative stages is hardly adequate to do them justice. The author does more than a skimpy run through of names, movements and methods. She notes changes in the relation of the rural and urban in India; and the acceptance of the complementarity of the “great” and “little” theatre traditions. She distinguishes between the “real” folk and the “urban” folk, between “literary” and “performance” texts. The narrative has its sharp moments. Objections to arbitrary infusions of the folk are condemned by a playwright as “artistic kleptomania”. The chapter on intertexts and countertexts raises brow-knitting thoughts about translation, transculturation, adaptation, and the politico-aesthetic motivations behind such appropriations.
The book resounds with voices from the past and present. An array of critics, academics and playwrights, quoted from printed texts or live interviews, speak their minds unabashedly. From the first page to the last, the authorial voice remains firm, compelling, but not didactic. Dharwadker’s vision balances distance with close engagement. Theatres of Independence is not an easy read, but it is a must read for every serious theatre lover and practitioner in this country.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Book Review
|
