Module 08:Rise of Bhasha: Great Traditions and Little Traditions; Western Impact and Indian Response; Cultural Politics and Hybridity (original) (raw)

5 THE CONCEPT OF MODERN THEATRE AND THEATRICALITY WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO INDIAN THEATRE

Life is a long journey of our emotions, sentiments, happiness and grief. Our life hangs between love and joy on one hand and sorrow and pathos on the other. Modern Indian theatre is the real voice of mankind. It comprises not only art, literature, music and dance but also reflects our day to day life. If has a rich treatise since 2000 BC to the 4 th century A.D. the great playwright Bharat Muni pioneered the concept in his writing " Natyashastra ". India has the rich honour to give this treatise to the world. According to the historians Oscar Brockett and Franklin Hildy – " In a theatre rituals typically include elements that entertain or give pleasures, such as costumes and masks as well as skilled performers. As societies grew more complex, these spectacular elements began to be acted out under non-ritualistic conditions. As this occured the first step towards theatre as an autonomous activity were being taken. " (1) All the above said elements are keys to modern Indian theatre. It can easily be traced back to the religions and ritualism of the Aryans. From epic theatre (stories of the Ramayan and the Mahabharat) to the theatre of modern era it is a rich saga of a journey of modern Indian drama and theatre. The earliest form of Indian theatre was the Sanskrit theatre. (2) It gave a divine origin to the Indian theatre contributing it to the Natyaveda created by Lord Brahma. It emerged sometimes between 2 nd century BC and the I century AD and flourished between the I century and the 10 th , which was a period of relative peace in the history of India during with hundreds of plays were written. (03) According to the legends after defeating demons the gods performed their victory in dramatic art. Our rich ancient culture with multi-religions and rituals along with

Theatre Research and Publication in India: An Overview of the Post-independence Period

Theatre Research International, 2010

This article offers an overview of theatre research and publication in India. It comes in two parts. The first examines theatre research post-independence (1947) up until the 1990s – a period of new economic thinking and a liberalization of sociocultural values. The second focuses on theatre research and publications from 2000 onwards, identifying ways in which more recent scholarship has been concerned with the concept of modernity in theory and practice; has begun to address questions of form, style, space and performativity; and has explored urgent social issues. What emerges in this overview is a feel for how complex the field of theatre research is in India given its multiculturalism. In concluding it draws attention to current and future challenges for theatre and theatre scholarship posed by issues such as globalization, communalism, terrorism and religious fundamentalism.

A CRITICAL OVERVIEW OF THE EVOLUTION OF INDIAN THEATRE AND THE DEPICTION OF FEMINIST CONCERNS

Indian writers have written excellent prose, composed poems and written in English for more than a century, but it was not earlier than the thirties and forties that a suitable and systematic attempt was made to view their output as an independent literature and not a mere part of Anglo-Indian literature. It is, however, only after Independence that the volume of Indian writing in English has gone up considerably, and the need for its critical evaluation has become more urgent than ever before. When it comes to the early form of theatre, it featured various kinds of performances, often in the narrative form with singing, dancing, and reciting. The first significant contribution to Indian theatre was made by Bharata Muni, who authored the thirty-six books of "The Natyashastra". It is a theoretical description of theatrical performance, elucidating its style and motion. While the amateur movement gave way to the drama school theatre, towards the turn of the century, some existing active troupes turned into semi-professional drama schools with the help of amateurs. They continued to keep the theatre scene operative. Prayoga Ranga (Bangalore), Lokadharmi (Kochi) and Sopanam (Trivandrum) are examples of this trend. This article attempts to encapsulate the evolutional of Indian literary landscape with special emphasis on the evolution and growth of theatre and women playwrights. Traditionally women have never had, nor were allowed a voice of their own. "Because a woman has patience, she is not allowed to speak; And she never learns the words" is said by the narrator in the play Mangalam by Poile Sengupta. One of the major concerns of this study is to analyse a new trend in theatre-the Theatre of Protest and showcase its relevance in the plays of Poile Sengupta, one of the foremost contemporary Indian playwrights.

Modern Indian Theatre – a New Perspective

PARIPEX INDIAN JOURNAL OF RESEARCH

Before we start to talk about the Modern Indian Theatre, first we should understand the concept of Modern theatre in to- days world. Modernism is an art form which comes from western society during the nineteenth and twentieth century. It focuses on a broad perception of looking into the world. It includes the newly emerging artistic world and social t ra d i t i o n wh i c h ex p e r i m e n t w i t h d i f f e re n t f o r m s . Modernization is a movement or we can say that the artistic revolution where the shape of all art forms changed. In simple words we can say that this Modern art has departed from the traditional art form which it considered outdated or obsolete. Under this new form of art it includes the art, mixture of different art form etc

Theatre as Social Critique in Select Nineteenth-Century Indian Plays

Theatre as Social Critique, 2023

As an imitation of actions, theatre is representational. Different aspects of performative arts like theatre are a reflection of the contemporary age in which they are written and performed. Theatre in Calcutta, India, in the nineteenth century started being influenced by the colonial and European models. The changes brought in by colonial modernity are major tropes in many of the plays of that time. Colonial modernity brought English education, western liberal ideas and new lifestyle, which attracted the youth and made them criticize the old and traditional ways. Krishnamohan Bandyopadhyay's (also spelt as Krishna Mohana Banerjea) The Persecuted and Michael Madhusudan Dutt's Ekei Ki Bole Sabbhyata? [Is This Called Civilization?] are two plays that represent the so-called colonial modernity and show how changes were taking place in the society in the colonial period in Bengal. The characters from two generations, the older following the traditional ways and the younger ones following Englishness, depict a confrontation of two civilizations. Ideologies, worldviews and new habits are formed among the youths, which are despised by the elders. The plays, thus, question the modern ways, that, if they really mean a civilization. This article attempts to show how the plays can be read as social critique at par with comedy of humours and comedy of manners.

Theatre as Social Critique: Reflections in Select Nineteenth-Century Indian Plays

SCHOLARS: Journal of Arts & Humanities, 2022

As an imitation of actions, theatre is representational. Different aspects of performative arts like theatre are a reflection of the contemporary age in which they are written and performed. Theatre in Calcutta, India, in the nineteenth century started being influenced by the colonial and European models. The changes brought in by colonial modernity are major tropes in many of the plays of that time. Colonial modernity brought English education, western liberal ideas and new lifestyle, which attracted the youth and made them criticize the old and traditional ways. Krishnamohan Bandyopadhyay’s (also spelt as Krishna Mohana Banerjea) The Persecuted and Michael Madhusudan Dutt’s Ekei Ki Bole Sabbhyata? [Is This Called Civilization?] are two plays that represent the so-called colonial modernity and show how changes were taking place in the society in the colonial period in Bengal. The characters from two generations, the older following the traditional ways and the younger ones followin...

The theatre and classical India: some availability issues

Philosophy East and West

Quite apart from urgencies arising within the theatre as an enterprise, it is independently necessary to bring the tools of speech act theory to bear on the theatre. This paper begins by redescribing the foundational moves of that theory in terms of drawing successive core-supplement boundaries – Austin’s first move demarcates a propositional core from a spoken-performative supplement; his second move, generalizing performativity over all speaking, demarcates a spoken (illocutionary) core from an active (perlocutionary) supplement. A third move, proposed here, extends this strategy of expanding the core in a performative direction. So extended, the central theoretical concern of speech act theory converges with what one major tradition articulates, both practically and conceptually, as the way forward for theatrical performance. That tradition – which has travelled from Stanislavski’s Russia, via Grotowski’s Poland, to Badal Sircar’s India – is in the business of giving democracy theatrical teeth. While Sircar does not explicitly claim a classical Indian ancestry for his work, serious Indology will find it easy to place him in that context.