Diverse stages
Jyoti Singh

Theatres of Independence:Drama, Theory, and Urban Performance in India since 1947
Aparna Bhargava Dharwadker. Oxford University Press, New Delhi. Pages 478. Rs 695.

Aparna Dharwadker’s Theatres of Independence is a historic repertoire of post-Independence drama and theatre of India. It is an in-depth study that defines theatre as a historically demarcated, linguistically and generically diverse field of "post colonial" practice. The theatre of the past 50 years is not a seamless extension of either colonial or pre-colonial traditions, but a product of new theoretical, textual, material, institutional and cultural conditions created by the experience of political independence, cultural autonomy and new nationhood.

The present study does not merely offer a "survey" of this theatre, but also attempts to make it visible internationally as a multi dimensional critical object through specific theoretical and interpretive procedures. The introductory chapter is followed by Part I of the study, comprising of four chapters.

The opening chapter juxtaposes three moments: the inception of a theatre association in 1943, an All-India Conference in 1956, and a multilingual drama festival in 1989; that mark the different stages in the evolution of the idea of a "national theatre" and the concomitant formation of a new "national canon".

Chapter 3 focuses on emergent conceptions of the playwright and the dramatic text by considering different models of dramatic author ship, the role of the playwright as theorist, the projection of drama as social text, and the place of translation within a multilingual theatre practice. Chapter 4 shifts attention from authorship and textuality to performance by taking up the production and reception of plays in the post-Independence period.

It deals with the range of major contemporary directing styles, the constitution of theatre audiences in different ven ues, and theatre’s relation to the mass-cultural and popular media.

Chap ter 5 concludes part I with a discussion of the emergence of the classicist view of Indian theatre in nineteenth-century orientalist discourse and the influence of this discourse on both cultural-nationalist critiques of Westernised modernity in India and the anthropological-intercultural approaches of the West in recent decades.

The common project of these post-Independence or postwar discourses is to subject the field of modern, contemporary, or postcolonial Indian theatre, as constructed in the preceding chapters, to ideological erasure.

Part II traces the formation of some significant postcolonial dramatic genres from the resources of myth, history, folk narrative, sociopolitical experience, and the intertextual connections among Indian, European, and Anglo-American drama.

Chapter 6 focuses on myth as the basis of drama and discusses three works—Dharamvir Bharati’s Andba Yug (Blind Epoch, 1954), K. N. Panikkar’s Urubhangam (The Shattered Thigh, 1987), and Ratan Thiyam’s Chakravyuha (Battle Formation, 1984)—that use various epi sodes in the Sanskrit epic, Mahabharata, as allegories of the emergent Indian nation.

Chapter 7 shifts the focus from myth to history. The plays discussed in this chapter—Mohan Rakesh’s Ashadh Ka Ek Din (A Day in Early Autumn, 1958), Girish Karnad’s Tughlaq (1964), and Badal Sircar’s Baki Itihas (The Rest of History, 1965)—use figures from classical and medieval history to construct ironic counter-histories for contemporary Indian audiences.

Chapter 8, considers the genre of social realism that counterpoints the mythic-historical texts of the previous two chapters. Plays in this genre are defiantly realistic in form, and set in the con temporary urban or semi-urban present; their subjects are home, family, and the ravages of contemporary life, especially in its professional and technological forms.

The representation of the family in such works as Vijay Tendulkar’s Kanyadaan (The Gift of a Daughter, 1983), Mahesh Elkunchwar’s Wada Cbirebandi (Old Stone Mansion, 1985), and Cyrus Mistry’s Doongaji House (1978) are shown to carry emotional and sociopolitical meanings very similar to the Western drama.

Chapter 9 deals with plays based on folk narratives that have a rural setting, incorporate music and dance, and follow antirealist performance conventions, includ ing a rejection of the proscenium stage. In terms of form, plays such as Karnad’s Hayavadana (Horse Head, 1971), Chandrashekhar Kambar’s Jokumaraswami (1972), and Habib Tanvir’s Charandas Chor (Charandas the Thief, 1974) exemplify the neotraditionalist movement in post-Independence Indian theatre. Chapter 10 deals with the "intertexts" and "counter texts" that employ various methods of cultural translation to recreate canonical Western and Indian texts in the modern Indian languages.

The appendixes provide the reader with a comprehensive insight into the major Indian playwrights and plays. The work undoubtedly offers a fresh look at modern Indian theatre.

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