The Evolution of Modern Indian Theatre

Hello viewers! Today’s session is about the evolution of modern Indian theatre. Indian theatre
has a continuous history spanning more than two thousand years. Ancient India developed an
encyclopaedic textbook on theatre called Natyashastra attributed to Bharata, which provided
the basis for Indian performing styles for centuries to come, almost contemporaneously with
Aristotle's poetics. This suggests that long before such a work arose, there was a rich legacy of
performance practise. The Treatise is the most comprehensive treatise of dramaturgy ever
written in antiquity. Acting, dancing, music, dramatic design, architecture, costume, make-up,
props, company organisation, the audience, competitions, and a mythical explanation of the
origins of theatre are all covered in this monumental work. For more over a millennium, the
aesthetic philosophy of rasa, as elucidated in Natyashastra, has inspired Indian aesthetic theory
and practise. Preeminent playwrights such as Bhasa, Kalidasa, Shudraka, Vishakadatta,
Bhavabhuti, and Harsha produced a huge harvest of Sanskrit drama over the first century. This
corpus of work compares to the dramatic output of other strong theatre traditions around the
world, such as ancient Greek theatre and Elizabethan theatre, in terms of range and power.

By the end of 10th century, the brilliance of ancient Sanskrit play faded. Regional language
literatures arose during the mediaeval period, although they did not generate dramatic works
comparable to ancient classics. Folk and ritualistic theatre, on the other hand, thrived
throughout this time. Due to the socio-religious reform Bhakti Movements that swept the
subcontinent throughout the mediaeval age, some developments in religious play occurred.

Indian theatre revived again during the British rule in 18th and 19th century against the
backdrop of this rich history. The motivation came from two places: India's rich theatre legacy
and English's exposure to Western dramatic classics. Sanskrit and Western classics,
particularly Shakespeare, began to be translated at the same time. Drama had not yet
established itself as a major literary form in Indian languages. As a result of Western influence,
drama began to flourish as a treasured literary genre alongside the modern genre of fiction.
The rise of theatre for the entertainment of the urban saw unparalleled development and
popularity during this time. This emerged as a means of providing entertainment to the rapidly
growing population of large cities as a result of industrialization. Parsi theatre is the name given
to the new urban theatre. Parsis were an influential business community in Bombay. The phrase
"Parsi theatre" refers to a prominent theatre tradition that existed between 1850 and 1930, and
was staged by Parsis and produced by theatre companies mostly owned by the Parsi
community. The plays were mostly written in Hindustani particularly the Urdu dialect, with
some Gujarati thrown in for good measure. Following its inception in Bombay, it quickly
evolved into a number of touring theatrical groups that travelled throughout India, particularly
north and western India today’s Gujarat and Maharashtra, Parsi theatrical companies
popularising proscenium-style theatre in regional languages.

This genre was an intriguing blend of Western Naturalistic theatre, opera, and a number of
regional features. Spectacle with large sets and vibrant backdrops was an important aspect of
it. For the staging of major and secondary action, the stage was usually divided into front and
back sections. Its life-breath was music. This theatre's actors were also excellent singers. In
contrast to traditional Indian theatre's stylized approaches, the performance became more
lifelike and emotional. The storylines for Parsi theatre shows came from a variety of sources,
including popular mythology, folklore, and everyday life. Western classics such as
Shakespeare and Lessing were also adapted. In contrast to traditional folk and tribal theatre,
Parsi theatre was performed in interior spaces, which is today known as proscenium theatre.
This Parsi theatre, aimed at the urban middle and working classes, provides a medley of
melodrama, humour, romance, and social criticism. This style of professional theatre,
performed by professional ensembles, sometimes travelling, was the only source of mass
entertainment before the birth of cinema, having flourished in newly emerging large towns like
Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai from the late 19th century. With the onset of the talkies
era in Hindi cinema in the 1930s, the theatre lost prominence. Entertainment-driven and
including musical and folk theatre, several Parsi theatre producers shifted to new media such
as bioscope in the early 1900s, and many went on to become film producers. Their films
became models for Indian cinema because of their emphasis on music, spectacle, and
melodrama. By the 1970s, entertainment theatre had largely been replaced by popular film,
with the exception of a few states such as Maharashtra and Assam. Though it delighted the
masses, yet amusement theatre drew criticism from the sensitive people of the modern Indian
community, particularly the educated and elite people. Literary drama and amateur theatre
flourished as a result of this. Great Indian language writers in various sections of India produced
literary theatre. Rabindranath Tagore, the most famous of these playwrights, enhanced the
theatre form as much as he enriched poetry and fiction. Disillusioned with contemporary
popular drama, Tagore constructed his own drama and theatre, borrowing aspects from both
the East and the West. Some of his productions, such as Chitrangada, and Dakghar were well-
known globally and were staged in Europe and North America. His plays, which are considered
world classics, were orchestrations of rich poetry, symbolism, socio-political commentary, and
cosmic vision. In plays like Muktadhara and Roktokoribi, they were also prophetic in terms of
his concept of experience, as they condemn technological excesses. Tagore's parallels existed
in other languages as well. Samsa and Kuvempu in Kannada, Subrahmanya Bharathiar in
Tamil, Sreekanthan Nair in Malayalam, Bharatendu Harishchandra and Jaishankar Prasad in
Hindi, amongst others, produced a rich harvest of drama in this time.

A related trend was social criticism theatre, which eventually evolved into urban amateur
theatre. This was a drama on social problems, influenced mostly by Ibsen and Bernard Shaw.
There are two types of realism in this genre: critical realism and socialist realism.

The Telugu classic Kanyashulkam by Vireshalingam Pantulu is an exemplary masterpiece of

socialist realism. This drama takes aim at the dowry system, which is a part of Indian marriage.
Because of its reformatory appeal, it gained enormous clout. Adya Rangachary, a Kannada
playwright, was another prolific author who authored plays about social problems such as caste,
exploitation of women, and religious hypocrisy (Sriranga).

Social criticism aspects were also prevalent in entertainment and literary theatre; however, they
were blended along with a variety of other elements. IPTA (Indian Political Theatre
Association) experiments were linked to socialist realism. Between the war years, in 1922, the
Indian Communist Party was created, along with its artistic branch, the Indian People's Theatre
Association (IPTA). IPTA's work gained traction in the 1940s. The organisation had branches
all over the country, but the ones in Bengal and Bombay, in particularly very active, with a
number of talented people on their ranks, all over the middle class with aspiration for a classless
society. They devised a form of theatre that was completely portable and had a political
objective that was clearly anti-colonial and anti-fascist. With the emergence of the IPTA
movement, it became clear that the time had come to disrupt the commercial (and politically
apolitical and non-ideological) Indian proscenium theatre, which had existed for roughly 70
years from the end of the 19th century to the present. IPTA was a group of Leftist intellectuals
who were artists. Though their impact differed by region, they were all committed to the idea
of theatre as a tool for social change. Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Maharashtra, Bengal, Punjab,
Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala were the hotbeds of this movement. The socialist realist works of
Howard Fast and Maxim Gorki affected the North Indian variants of IPTA the most. This type
of theatre is exemplified by Bhisham Sahani. Efforts were made in the South to reconcile social
messages with traditional mediums. The most well-known of these plays is Toppil Bhasi's
Ningal Endai Communist Akki (You Made Me a Communist). This musical play's famous
performance is said to have cleared the path for Kerala's first ever elected Communist
administration. In many places, amateur theatre emerged that were not directly affiliated with
Communism but were committed to social reform.

Though it was not as popular as entertainment theatre, it preserved the role of drama as a form
of life criticism. IPTA's challenge was not the formal redefining of theatrical form or the
construction of an identifiable national identity for theatre. Instead, it was transforming Indian
theatre, even within the confines of proscenium-style theatre, into a tool for social reform that
prioritised reaching the public. In this pursuit, the Prithvi Theatre, created in 1944 by actor
Prithviraj Kapoor, was one of these theatres. It became a full-fledged theatre house in 1962 and
is still in operation today. The theatre scene in India started to evolve dramatically shortly after
the country's independence in 1947. IPTA's influence began to fade. Because of the
competition from more popular film genres, and entertainment theatres. But still amateur
theatre thrived in major cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Bangalore.

Utpal Dutt and Shambhu Mitra, two significant theatre figures in Kolkata, emerged out of
IPTA. Following the demise of IPTA, the former made substantial contributions to political
theatre. He was a playwright, director, actor, and producer who had left IPTA after producing
several memorable productions such as Teen Talwar and Surya Shikari. In his writings, the
impact of Socialist Realism might be seen. His reinterpretation of the popular folk theatre Jatra
as a medium for transmitting contemporary political concerns was another significant
achievement. Shambhu Mitra, on the other hand, concentrated on fine-tuning Theatre's artistic
basis. For a few years, he was a member of the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA)
before establishing the Bohurupee theatre company in Kolkata in 1948. Dharti Ke Lal (1946),
Jagte Raho (1956), and his production of Rakta Karabi based on Rabindranath Tagore's play
in 1954, as well as Chand Baniker Pala, are amongst his most well-known works.

Following independence, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Indian Prime Minister and a staunch
supporter of culture, intended to ensure that the arts flourished in the new democratic system
without interference from the state. As a result, he established a number of national academies
that, while supported by the government, would operate independently in order to protect and
promote the arts. The Sangeet Natak Akademi (Music and Performing Arts Akademi) was
founded to promote theatre and other performing arts. This organisation has been honouring
exceptional performers who have contributed to various facets of theatre with awards each
year. It also hosts seminars, workshops, and festivals to promote theatre on a regular basis. The
coveted Sangeet Natak Akademi prize has gone to a number of notable directors, actors, and
writers.

Sangeet Natak Akademi was instrumental in bringing a new shape to Indian theatre,
particularly in the 1980s, through a widespread scheme of financial assistance to theatre
directors who recreate old forms, both folk and classical, on modern stages. Two significant
directors from Manipur, Rathan Thiyam, and Kerala, KN Panikkar, came out with productions
that used traditional materials in innovative ways in modern theatre. Chakravyuh, Uttara
Priyadarshika among Ratan Thiyam's creations, have enchanted audiences all over the world
with its captivating spectacular quality derived from colourful Manipuri folklore. In contrast,
K N Panikker's creations, such as Karnabharam, incorporate aspects from ancient Sanskrit
drama. Both of these directors have had a significant influence on younger filmmakers and
theatre practitioners.

Following the founding of the National School of Drama, an autonomous state-funded

institution in Delhi, another significant development in post-Independence theatre was the rise
of drama school theatre. Ibrahim Alkazi, NSD's founding director, laid the foundations for this
unique theatre organisation. He set up the curriculum and envisioned the training and
production of the new school along the stringent lines of modern Western theatrical aesthetics,
inspired by the example of RADA in the United Kingdom, where he obtained training. On the
other side, his successor, BV Karanth, who was trained in the Karnataka Yakshagan traditions,
Indianized theatre methods by thrusting ancient skills into the service of modern theatre. In
effect, the work of multiple generations of theatre artists trained in NSD has been distinguished
by the dialectics between Western and Indian methodologies. Apart from providing a three-
year residential training to young students selected from across the country, NSD also operates
a full-fledged theatre repertory that produces new productions every year and hosts various
types of theatre workshops for various classes of learners in Delhi and across India.

Another hallmark of NSD is the organisation of the Bharat Rang Mahotsav, an annual drama
festival. It began as a national festival and has since grown into a major international event that
attracts a diverse range of productions from across India and the rest of the world.
Other theatre schools and repertories have sprung up all throughout the country in addition to
NSD. B.V. Karanth founded two theatre schools and repertories when his time at NSD came
to an end. The first, Ranga Mandal, was founded in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. It was
particularly active throughout the 1980s, thanks to funding from the Madhya Pradesh state
government. In Mysore, he founded the second repertory, the state-run Nataka Karnataka. It is
still going strong, producing unique works and hosting yearly international festivals.

Apart from government-run theatre schools, self-supporting theatre schools have sprung in a
number of states. Neenasam, a theatre school and repertory founded in Heggodu, Karnataka,
by the late K.V. Subbanna, a towering theatre personality, has become a hub of theatre and
culture, attracting theatre and culture professionals from across the state and beyond. Unlike
other drama schools, it has placed theatre in the context of other arts and humanities, such as
literature, dance, culture, and intellectual history, all of which are featured in their annual
cultural appreciation course. Furthermore, Neenasam has shown that creativity may be found
not just in the capitals, but also in the margins. Kalakshetra and Chorus Theatre in Imphal,
Manipur, are the country's other major theatre repertories. Kanhailal and Ratan Thiyam, two
outstanding virtuosos of Indian theatre, respectively, run them. Badanguppa, a very active
theatre school incorporating Rabha tribal, has formed in a distant village of Rampur in Assam,
under the leadership of Kanhailal. Bharatendu Harishchandra Academy in Lucknow and Rang
Bundeli in Bhopal are two other well-known drama schools in India.

By the turn of the century, the amateur movement had generally given way to drama school
theatre, but some of the active troupes had evolved into semi-professional drama schools
involving amateurs. They keep the theatre scene alive and well. This pattern can be seen at
Prayoga Ranga in Bangalore, Lokadharmi in Kochi, and Sopanam in Trivandrum. Departments
of culture at both the national and state levels are also developing Indian theatre today. By
granting honours, holding festivals, and providing financing, state government-run academies
are helping to keep theatre alive and well.

Indian theatre has gone through various phases in the post-independence period, supported by
state and private funding from India and beyond but always revitalised by individual talents,
inspired by influences from the West but also reverting to native resources. It produced
internationally recognised playwrights such as Vijay Tendulkar, Badal Sarcar, Dharmaveer
Bharati, Mohan Rakesh and Girish Karnad, Chandrashekhar Kambar, P Lankesh, and Indira
Parthasarati during the period of modernism, whose works have been widely performed and
studied across globe. These playwrights introduced a high level of formal rigour to the stage
along with exploring various thematic arenas. Younger playwrights from are now tackling
issues such as identity crises, social concerns, and the effects of globalization also, pscho-
physical approaches to express or resolve these concerns of mankind. Contemporary directors,
heirs to a magnificent history, are reinventing the theatre idiom by combining resources from
the past with those of the digital era. Despite the enormous popularity of its rivals-cinema and
television-Indian theatre, which is performed in 24 major languages as well as several tribal
languages and dialect English, has unlimited variety and potentials.

Hope you enjoyed today’s session! Thanks for watching!