Performance Tradition and Modern Theatre

After the breakdown of Sanskrit classical tradition in North India in the 10th century, there was a reflowering of the of the performance tradition in South India. It was first manifested in Kutiyattam of Kerala, the only surviving performing tradition of Sanskrit drama. Kutiyattam found place in large Vishnu temples performed in Temple theatre called Kuttambalam. Kings provided the patronage to the theatres. Later, in Kerala itself in the 16th century, there developed two highly evolved forms - Krishnattam, an eight-cycle play on the life of Krishna which found place in large Krishna temple of Guruvayur. Along with this, Kathakali with its highly codified performance elements, also developed. Kathakali, too, found patronage from the kings and the temple. Similarly in Karnataka state there evolved in the 17th century Yakshagana which performs stories from the two epics. All these forms retained recitation and story-telling format which have been the roots forms of the Indian performance tradition.

Rise of Modern Theatre
In the mid nineteenth century modern drama and theatre had its beginning in Calcutta, then the seat of British power, under the direct influence of British theatrical tradition. It created great rupture from the performance tradition of more than two thousand years which began with the dialogue hymns of the Rigveda and developed with the two great epics - the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Theatre in Calcutta was for the enjoyment of the British officers, and it was in extension of their club life. Their world of Indian performance tradition was confined to the nautch girls. Theatre activity was generated by the visiting British companies and some amateur theatre activity by British Clubs. Victorian melodramas and farces were presented with heavy sets and sensational lighting. Even the local Bengali intellectuals and aristocracy were neither permitted to visit the theatre, nor allowed to become the members of such clubs.

But Bengal in its Jatra form had vigorous indigenous theatre. Vidya Sunder, dealing with the story of two young lovers, was quite popular among the locals at the time. Regretfully, this was rejected by the intellectuals and the aristocracy on the ground of obscenity in the performance. The intervention on the part of the aristocracy created a rupture between the indigenous Bengali theatre and the modern Bengali drama.

The same pattern was repeated in most other linguistic regions with variation in the intensity of rupture. In some languages, however, dramatics created modern drama on the model of indigenous forms. For instance, in Hindi, Bhartendu Harishchandra was the first dramatist who wrote plays on the model of traditional forms like Rasalila. He also wrote a play Vidya Sunder based on the story popular in Jatra. In another theatrically strong region, Maharashtra, Vishnu Das Bhave wrote first modern Marathi play Sita Swayamvar in 1843 taking inspiration from the indigenous form Yakshagan of Karnataka as prevalent in the Sangli region of Maharashtra.

The first proscenium theatre was built in Calcutta in 1860, forcing frontal view of the performance on the spectators. This totally changed the aesthetics of reception of a theatrical performance and also broke close and intimate relationship between the actors and spectators. Indian audiences had traditionally seen performances often by moving from different angles and levels, having multiple perception of a performance. Sculpture on the other walls of the temples is also meant to be seen by making parikrama (circumambulation) because it is only then that the sculptures make their full dramatic impact on the viewers.

Encounter with Tradition
However, independence in 1947 generated a process of decolonisation of our life, arts and cultural modes. Senior directors like Habib Tanvir in Hindi, Sombhu Mitra in Bengali in the North and B.V. Karanth and K.N. Panikkar in the South, took the lead to have an encounter with the tradition, and to match the intensity with which the modern theatre had arisen with violent rupture from the indigenous theatre. This encounter has given rise to 'new' contemporary theatre with some distinctive features. The emergence of new theatre has been prompted by quest for identity and search for roots. It has also led to the creation of two streams in modern theatre. Several senior directors and playwrights continued to work in naturalistic idiom, though only occasionally that they tried to bring in elements of experiment in their productions.

Music and Movements
With the decline of naturalistic theatre and the emergence of new theatre following the performance practice, music and movements have been brought back. It was Habib Tanvir who in mid-50s in his theatre used music, songs, movements, dance and poetry, which were practically exiled from the naturalistic theatre. His production of Agra Bazar, a play constructed by himself on the poetry and life of popular poet Nazir of Agra was a celebration of life on the stage. He put on the stage a whole Bazar scene with hawkers selling their goods and singing Nazir's poems. Later Tanvir did this play again in local dialect with the folk performers pf Nacha form of his region Chhattisgarh, now a full fledged state, then a part of Madhya Pradesh.

Music has now become so important and integral to the performance that it has acquired the status of a theatre language like that of the dramatic text itself. It has its own channel of communication. From the Natyashastra to the other treatises, all have laid great emphasis on music in drama. In all traditional forms music and movements are integral to the performance.

The primary concern of theatre as a public art is communication, which is opened with the active involvement of spectators with theatre. Theatre music greatly helps in opening the channels and smoothens the flow of communication. In the new theatre, music also helps the spectators in providing multiple perception of performance.

It is a special feature of the new theatre that several directors are also music composers and compose music for their productions in relation to the dramatic text and movements. K.N. Panikkar, B.V. Karanth and Ratan Thiyam are the senior directors who compose music for their productions. Karanth has specialized in theatre music and has a definite philosophy and aesthetics. Often he also composes music for the productions by other directors. One may say that a new class of theatre music composers has emerged. In the credit list for a theatrical production, the name of music composer is given along with other technicians.

In theatrical productions music accentuates and highlights postures and gestures while providing a frame for visual images. Panikkar's actors in his production of Sanskrit plays make entrances and exits in highly stylized gait set to tala and accentuated by the drum. This greatly increases the impact of the entrances and exits of the actors. Both Panikkar and Karanth use swar patterns and bols as music. Karanth also uses alap, chant and humming for musical effect. In new theatre, music rather than being ornamental has become functional and organic.


Along with music, dance like movements are also added. Some directors use the services of dancers and choreographers to work on a scheme of movements and their names are given in the credit list.

Ratan Thiyam's famous play Chakravyuth (1984) which was full of movements and rhythm and was based on Abhimanyu story from the Mahabharata heralded the beginning of the new theatre. While this production made great impact on the audiences used to spoken theatre; it was disapproved by the directors who still practiced realistic theatre. They commented it was ballet and not theatre. They did not realize that Indian tradition did not exclude movements and rhythm from a theatrical production.

Rejection of Proscenium Theatre
One of the several features important for the understanding of the aesthetics of new theatre is the rejection of the proscenium theatre by most of the directors. They use variety of performance spaces to bring about a closer relationship between the actors and spectators, and also provide a new perception of the performance.

The first feeble efforts to liberate the actor from the inhibiting influence of proscenium theatre were made by violating its conventions even while performing within it. These efforts manifested themselves in a variety of ways: in actor's entrances and exits through the auditorium, actors sitting in the auditorium and speaking their lines from there, - and enactment of some of the scenes, such as processional and crowd scenes, in the auditorium.

It is paradoxical that in a theatrical tradition which provides a great variety of spaces with most exciting environmental features, the modern theatre that arose during the mid-nineteenth century chose for itself proscenium theatre. The flexibility of the performance space is utilized for mounting production in different designs. More and more, younger directors are using simple open spaces and the space determines the design of the production.

It was in the west in the early 1960s that the theatre directors revolted against the proscenium theatre in order to experiment with their productions. In proscenium tradition the viewing is fronted and is found to one unitary channel. It was to break this monotony of unilaterity of frontal viewing in proscenium theatre that necessitated architectural changes. This resulted in the creation of thrust stage, arena stage and theatre-in-the round. These varieties of stages brought about closer relationship between the actor and the spectators with possibilities for manipulating the relationship and providing multiple perceptions of performance. The monotony of production design conditional by the proscenium theatre format was thus broken and enabled the directors to shape their productions in relation to the type of stage they used.

Back to the Classics
An important feature of the new theatre is the endeavour to get back to the classics. A symbolic beginning of getting back to the Sanskrit classics was made in 1956 when the first national drama festival was organized by the Sangeet Natak Akademi (National Academy of Music, Dance and Drama). It opened with the production of Shakuntala by the great poet and playwright Kalidas in original, performed by the Goa Brahman Sabha of Bombay. They have been doing Sanskrit plays in original. In Maharashtra, with the singing of the shlokas in the style of sangeet natak (musical form), the classics also became part of the Marathi Sangeet Natak, which is a special feature of the Marathi theatre.

The other two theatre groups namely - Sanskritrang of the late Dr. V. Raghavan in Chennai and Prachyavani in Kolkata also did the groups, however, did not arouse the interest of contemporary theatre audience, and their academic style was of no theatrical interest.

From the early 60s, the National School of Drama (NSD) as part of its training programme, took up the production of Sanskrit plays in Hindi translation by the students of the School. These were largely training oriented and the directors tried to reconstruct the ancient style of production on the basis of their understanding of the Natyashastra. Some of the significant productions in this category were by Shanta Gandhi as a member of the staff of the school. Her noted production was that of Madhyam Vyayog by Bhasa, which, though showing semblance of freshness in production, had a text-book character. Since mid 60s, the famous Sanskrit prahasana (farce) - Bhagvadajjukiyam (The Monk and the Courtesan) in Hindi translation has been done by the students of the school by several directors.

But it was Habib Tanvir's production of Mrichchhakatikam (The Toy Cart) by Shudrak in Hindi translation in 1958 as sung and danced performance, which though shocking to the pundits and purists of Sanskrit dramatic tradition, aroused great interest among the theatre audience. It brought to light the potential of Sanskrit classics to become a part of the mainstream theatre activity.

In the second phase of return to the classics which began in early 70s, both the objectives of doing the classics and their production design got completely changed. These productions were done by the senior directors of the contemporary new theatre in various languages and their objective was to make the classics part of contemporary theatre activity. Hence they did not care about the authentic style of production. They wanted to approach and interpret the classics as contemporary directors and for the contemporary audiences.

It is an interesting point to note that the second phase of getting back to the classics was generated by the new theatre movement. What is even of greater interest is that, inter alia, it strengthened new theatre movement, and within the course of less than two decades, the classics became an integral part of the new mainstream theatre. Surprisingly it is Bhasa (2nd Century B.C. - 2nd Century A.D.) who made it possible, and made greatest contribution to this phenomenon of the new theatre. The significant contribution of Bhasa's plays to the development of the new theatre is ironical as his plays were discovered only in 1913. Not only that, his 13 plays dealing with the two epics remained un-performed for nearly half a century as Sanskrit scholars, both Indian and foreign, kept debating and doubting the stageability of this plays. The basic debate veered round to the argument that being close to the epic tradition Bhasa's plays were descriptive, and dramatically not well constructed.

Second important step in the production of Sanskrit drama was K.N. Panikkar's Madhyam Vyayog (The Middle One) by Bhasa in original. He mounted the production at the Kalidasa Akademi's Festival in 1980. Kalidasa Akademi in Ujjain has provided a meaningful forum for the classics for the last more than two decades. Similarly, several directions of the contemporary theatre got attached to the classics and produced plays in different styles. These productions showed marked change from the productions done earlier in realistic mode with elaborate sets. It is said that in of their early festivals, Dr. V. Raghvan, Sanskrit scholar and director, brought his production of Shakuntala from Chennai with a truck load of painted curtains, sets and props.

Panikkar's Madhyam Vyayog was later presented in Delhi in Sri Ram Center's Annual Theatre Festival. It made great impact on the audience and marked the beginning of rediscovery of Bhasa in theatrical terms. Panikkar was followed by Ratan Thiyam who also did successful productions of Urubhangam (Broken Thigh) and Karnabharam (Karna's Burden) in Manipuri putting strong imprint of Manipur's rich performance culture. These productions completely negated and proved meaningless conventional text book productions of Sanskrit plays.

For doing Bhasa's Urubhangam, his emphasis has been on creating powerful visual images with strong movements, music and dance. He has superb ability as a craftsman. His actors make strong and prolonged entrances and exits with dance-like movements. His compositions and groupings are pleasant and powerful. Speech of his actors is almost explosive inspired as it is by Wari-Liba, the story-telling form of Manipur.

New Folkloric Theatre
As a result of encounter with the traditional theatre, several directors following Tanvir's example started working with the mixed group of folk performers and urban actors often using folk legends and community myths. As a result a new theatrical genre called folkloric theatre has emerged.

The credit of eliminating the great divide between modern-urban and folk-rural theatre goes to the senior theatre director, Habib Tanvir. With his new folkloric theatre, working with the performers of Nacha form of his region, Chhattisgarh he blurred the line between these two worlds.


Nacha performers are brilliant singers and dancers, and perform with great gusto. Habib Tanvir produced his famous Charandas Chor based on a folk tale of Rajasthan. Since then he has been working in the same theatrical idiom with a mission. His other well known productions are - Asghar Vazahat's play Jin Lahore Nahi Dekhya Vo Janma Nahin (1970), dealing with the partition of India and creation of Pakistan and Dekh Rahain Hain Na. Tanvir has always been attracted to Sanskrit Classics. He also produced Vishakhdatt's Mudrarakshash in English and Bhavabhuti's Uttar Ramcharit.

B.V. Karanth while working s the Director of Bharat Bhavan's repertory at Bhopal also did Mrichhkatikam and Kalidasa's Malvikagnimitra in the Malavi dialect of the state. He also used other dialects of Madhya Pradesh such as Bundelkhandi and Chhattisgarhi in his other productions. The use of dialects is another interesting feature of the new folkloric theatre.

This trend in the contemp orary theatre received a great boost from the Sangeet Natak Akademi's scheme of granting production assistance to young directors for experimental productions involving interaction with folk and traditional theatre. The power of traditional themes, music and dance used by the directors made these folkloric performances quite popular with the audience. For instance, cutting across linguistic barrier Habib Tanvir's Charandas Chor has been receiving large enthusiastic response from the audience in Kolkata. Akademi's scheme involving new productions and organization of zonal and national festivals of these new productions has resulted in the discovery of whole new generation of young brilliant directors from small cities and towns where they had no exposure to the urban theatre. These festivals also created new and enlarged theatre audience even in small towns.

Some of the directors who were discovered in this process continue to work in folkloric theatre idiom. For instance, after the great success of his Baba Jitto, during one of the festivals organized by the Akademi, Balwant Thakur in Jammu with his group has been quite active. Play-scripts for these groups are often written by the local poets based on traditional myths and legends. Similarly, Waman Kendre in Mumbai has developed into a bright young director after his successful production of Zulva during one of such festivals. Zulva is based on a powerful story concerning the Yellamma community. Jaishri from Bangalore has two presented a brilliant play Lakshapati Rajan Katha by M.S. Nagarajan during one of the Akademi festivals.

As part of folkloric theatre movement, several directors are now working with mixed cast of urban and folk actors. Neelam Man Singh Chaudhary working in Chandigarh has professional Naqqals of Punjab in her group, who had with great virtuosity dance and movements to all her productions and act as female impersonators and work as stage hands too. She did Raja Bharthari, a traditional play, imparting it a contemporary idiom. Later, she did a production of Lorca's Yarma in adaption by Punjab's famous poet Pattar. The production of Yarma was greatly admired for its strong images echoing the agony of Yarma's barrenness. Later, she did Girish Karnad's play Nagmandal (play with a Kobra) based on two Kannada folk tales. With complex weaving of the thematic material, the play moves on several planes. She mounted the production with moving ritualistic images and put a strong imprint of Punjab's rich culture of traditional arts and crafts.

Similarly senior director, Bhanu Bharati, is now working at Udaipur with a group from the Bheel tribal community. His famous production Amar Beej (Immortal Seed) is based on a Bheel legend which has environmental concerns. He created strong images of water, milk and blood by stretching cloth across the stage.

Satish Anand, a senior director in Patna, uses lost folk traditional forms Bidesia and Bidapat nach of his region and performs in his native dialect of Bhojpuri. His Sanskrit classic Mrichhakatikam produced in Hindi translation as Mati-Gadi is a most delightfully sung and danced production of a classic. He has also done dramatized version of famous novel Maila Anchal by Phanishwarnath Renu in the same theatrical idiom.

In the South India, Ramaswamy mixes folk and urban actors in his productions and uses folk forms most effectively as he used Teravattam dancers in the role of the Chorus for his production of Antigone. Playwright and director N. Muttuswamy in Chennai has been working with traditional actors of Terukuttu form of his region, and using their movements has evolved his own system of training of actors. Similarly, senior Tamil director Ramanujam is also working with mixed cast and creativity interacting with folk forms. Young director V. Arumugam, whose talent was discovered in one of these festivals, practices theatre of rich visual images with his own plays Karunchuzhi (Whirlpool) which have minimal text. These directors are credited with bring about a complete change of the character of Tamil theatre, a poor imitation as it was of commercial Tamil cinema dominated by popular film idols like M.G.R. and Shivaji Ganeshan.

In Manipur in the north-east, senior director and playwright Kanhai Lal uses traditional legends and tales providing them contemporary relevance. His Pabet based on a folk tale is a powerful comment on cultural domination of Manipur and a brilliant example of the lyric theatre of images. His wife Savitry is a most accomplished and powerful actress.

Lokendra Arambum with his concerns with the social and political life of Manipur, uses traditional forms while diluting their religious elements. There are several other young directions in Manipur who take inspiration from tradition to suit and enrich their production methods and designs.

Training
While in other performing arts - music and dance - there are age-old traditional systems of training which we expect a musician or a dancer to go through, formal training for a modern actor was not given much of priority. Ours is a performance tradition in which a performer has always received training often within the family and through the process of imitation and inheritance. In several forms of theatre and dance there is a strong input from martial art also towards training a performer.

For instance, Kathakali has evolved a sound system of training with several exercises and movements taken over from Kalari, the martial art of the region, including its massage system to make the body supple.

Systematic training of the traditional performer is actually an Asian phenomenon. Each theatre form has its own system of training suited to its performance design. There is an input of martial art in the training of the performer in Kabuki of Japan and Peking Opera of China to enable the actors to strike strong poses.

With the breakaway from the naturalistic spoken theatre in early 1960's, several directors of the new theatre used yoga, martial arts, circus skills, gymnastics and acrobatics to impart physicality and plasticity to a theatrical performance and evolved their own system of training. These systems are primarily suited to their own production but also have wider applicability. Some of the senior directors who have evolved their own systems of training are : K.N. Panikkar, B.V. Karanth, Ratan Thiyam, Kanhai Lal, Bansi Kaul and N. Muttuswami.

Training exercises of martial arts, though developed for their carry-over-value in combat, have inherent quality to help actor develop stamina, reflex action and performing ability. A whole range of exercises of all the systems of martial arts greatly help the performer in exploring the space, and in developing a strong and intuitive sense of the dynamics of body. Basic skills which include striking, kicking, blocking and movements of attack and defence can help the actor explore space in relation to his body - an ability which is basic to the art of the actor and dancer.

Training through martial art also helps harmonization of physical and psychological impulses and cultivates a sense of rhythm. The movements of martial art in all traditions, being based on animal and bird movements - monkey, elephant, cat, horse, snake, crane - have inherent sense of grace and rhythm. Such a training enables an actor register a strong presence on the stage. Even in stillness he is able, as it were, to charge the space. A Kathakali and Yakshgan dancer-actor, a Chhau dancer etc. have a strong arresting presence, and as they take position on the stage the whole of the performance space seems to get charged.

The training and preparation for the performer has acquired such an importance that for the directors of the new theatre, actor' training and preparatory workshops have become more important than the conventional rehearsals. This is in accordance with the indigenous theatrical tradition. For Kathakali and Yakshagan actors, there is no such thing as rehearsal. What they go through is several years of rigorous training and long hours of preparation before the performance. That is also the case with Japanese forms, Noh and Kabuki. There may be, what may be termed as "run-through" before the performance, but not long rehearsals.

As part of the actor training system, K.N. Panikkar has developed rhythmic exercises taking inspiration from some of the traditional performance modes of his region. Rhythm is provided by actors themselves who chant, recite, sing or perform exercises to the tune of the music of drum.

The use of Charis (gait) is a distinctive feature of Panikkar's production design. He has developed a whole repertoire of Charis which are used for highly stylized entrances, exits, movements, formations and groupings. Panikkar has followed Natyashastra tradition with regard to the training of actors which recognizes special charis, karnas, anaghars and mandalas for actor training.

Like Panikkar, Kanhai Lal has evolved his own theatrical idiom with emphasis on lyrical images. To suit his theatre idiom, he has also evolved a method of training of actors which lays emphasis on improvisation during the rehearsal process. He uses actors' body to create performance text. His whole endeavour, in fact, is to liberate theatre from literature. During the exercise for actors, Kanhai Lal puts emphasis on breathing and physio-psycho impulses. In Manipur because of the strong tradition of martial art, Thang-Ta and complex religious performance forms like Natsankirtan, the body culture is very rich. Kanhai Lal and Ratan Thiyam have exploited the Manipur tradition of rich body culture to train their performers.