This scholarly book describes, discusses and analyses the
Theatres of Independence of urban performance in India from 1947 to 2005, both in
theory and in practice. Even in short period Indian theatres have a myriad of
forms, languages, craft, socio-political-cultural impulsions, impacting
colonial legacy and local traditions, a vast array indeed. The book is in two
parts. The first part frames modern Indian theatre on a post colonial grid
bringing out such interesting conclusions that 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 in India. The theatre rich regions naturally get more
emphasis. The second part deals with
specific genres growing from native myth, history, folk narrative and socio
political experiences in Indian as well as Western drama. A primal connection
between the past Indian theatre and the present as that of Adya Rangacharya and
Mohan Rakesh or history manifested through works of Vijay Tendulkar and Girish
Karnad is traced out. The writer also discusses linguistic-geographic recasting
of classical plays like those of Kalidasa and Bhasa by K.N.Panikkar in Kerala
and Ratan Thiyam in Manipur which recreate new import and a wholly new field of
references; in particular the ambivalence of Mahabharata right from Mohan
Rakesh’s Andha Yug to Peter Brook’s morality play. The analyses and discussions
are accompanied by several illustrations. There is adequate material on
alternate theatre, too. The changes in the relation of the rural and urban in
India and the acceptance of the complementarities of great and little theatre
traditions and the distinction between the real folk and the urban folk is also
aptly brought out. The book also has a chapter on inter texts and counter texts
that raises issues of translations, transculturation and adaptation