Preamble
The question on, if not the whole
issue of, Indian Theatre, whether classical, folk, modern or whatever appendage
is affixed to it raises eyebrows. Why? There was no India as known today prior
to a certain and recent period of time, which is following the British colonial
masters’ declaration of independence to a people who hitherto shared no language,
religion, norm and culture; the group of people who were even sometimes hostile
to one another. Many scholars and theatre historians and critics have intensely
argued (and the argument still continuous) on the true origin, and, again, the
existence of an all-encompassing concept called Indian theatre. Reasons
ascribed to such contentions are many: Is this the Hindus’, or the Muslims’,
the Sikhs’, the Buddhists’, or other religions’ performance that is more
befitting to be tagged Indian Theatre? So also the ethnic dispensations; Hindi,
Punjabi, Kannada, Bengali, etc all rightly belong to the India; or the recently
emerged but very popular English theatre. One is left with many questions.
Thus, simply calling any single act of performance and labelling it as Indian
is but a mere assumption, or what Ahuja (2012) impliedly describes as
“Pan-Indian[ism]”. It is an argument that is unending. Theatre practice in
India is heavily regional-based, sometimes language-based, culture-specific a
la based, and often than not, religious-themed. Be it, however, as it may,
whichever theatre performance, as per as I see it, that is carried out in
India, by Indians and with one of the multitude Indian thematic preoccupations
could be qualified to be termed an Indian theatrical performance.
The Indian Theatre
Above was briefly explored for the sake
of argument. Besides, everything was begun by somebody, at somewhere and in a
certain period; the same with the Indian theatre. Theatre is very much a part
of Indian’s ancient history. But, a fact remains; the history or origin of
theatre all over the world is
trailed with so much hypothetical postulations.
Many “authoritative” scholars say that theatre, or more narrowly, theatrical
performance, is as old as the first man on earth, hence the difficulty in
tracing its exact root. This supposition is held by many other theatre
historians and archaeologists, though some scholars later refer to those
performances said to be done by the First Man on earth as antecedents of drama
and/or quasi or para-drama we know today (See Clark, 1918, Damen, 2009 and others).
However, regarding the origin of the
Indian theatre, Chatterjee (undated), and many other scholars, believes that
the theatre has a tradition going back to at least 5000 years. It began with
Regvadic dialogue hymns during the Vedic period. Natya Shashtra is said to be the earliest known Sanskrit compendium
on Indian theatre, attributed to the sage Bharata. According to the famous Oxford Companion to Theatre and Performance (2012),
the encyclopaedic text of Natya Shashtra
was allegedly written almost two millennia ago, where it incorporated
interpolations over the years which have been tacitly approved by gurus and
performers.
The Classical Indian Theatre
The Classical theatre is one form of
theatre (others are folk/traditional and modern), and this is a theatre which
is based on rules, regulations and modification. In India, there exists a
treatise which contains many dramaturgical issues called Natya Shashtra written in the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit.
This was written by Bharata in between 200 B.C and A.D 1000 (there is no
consensus on the exact time it was written). According to one account, the Natya
Shastra is also known as Natyaveda
or the fifth Veda, and, it is
a detailed classical manual on the theory and practice of Indian aesthetics—
theatre, music, dance, poetics, gestures and many other allied arts. It talks
about Rasa (“flavour”, “feeling”,
“sentiment”), which is grounded in a spectrum of at least nine distinct
emotional registers—erotic, comic, pathetic, furious, heroic, terrifying,
odious, marvellous and peaceful (Kennedy, 2011).
The treatise was taken up for
performance. This was most of the times carried out during some sort of
ritualistic or ceremonial practices by the local people. The performers moved
further ahead to different areas, where there spectacular and many a times
marvellous show was awarded by the amused massive audience in kind, or
“cash”. This stands to mean that the
very earliest performances of the Indian classical drama was done in what
modern theatre scholars called “street”, and then it moved to “stage”. The
first and the most important requirement of a theatre is that it should allow
people to gather round to watch and hear the performers. Horwitzz (1912:22)
records that when it is in the rainy seasons, the [actors’] place was the city
temples, but during the fine months of the year the evening entertainment was
given on the village green. He goes on describing the setting that “A
fellow-actor expounded the Sanskrit verses to the illiterate villagers in their
local patois”. Though “illiterates”, being the plots of the play are based on
epics, history, folk tales and legend, the audience are mostly familiar with
the stories. The theatre language, as Chatterjee (undated) records, also,
requires a visual presentation through gestures, mime and movement. This brings
us to the crux of the question at hand.
The Need for Permanent Theatres
The need for permanent theatre is
created as much by the needs of the audience as by the need of the actors.
While permanent theatre may allow for greater comfort for the actors, who are
probably getting tired of their tour in and around towns; and, moreover, it
means a greater development and sophistication in the production, a very
important function is to contain the audience within a space that allows the
actors to control their attention. One of the advantages of this is this if the
audience is expected to pay admission, then there has to be a clear demarcation
of territory between them and the actors.
Photo by The Groove School Magazine: http://thegroveschoolmagazine.com/2012/11/16/grove-school-wins-first-place-in-sanskrit-drama-competition-held-on-novemver-10-2012/
The Natya Shastra Stage
The Natya Shastra describes nine
types of theatre spaces for performing drama in Sanskrit – three shapes
(square, rectangle, triangle) and three sizes for each (large, medium, small).
A medium-sized rectangular theatre could hold roughly 400 spectators and was 29
metres long and 14.5 metres wide. The auditorium took up exactly one-half of the
space and was enclosed to improve the acoustics. The theatre was regarded as
representing the universe. Some stages were consequently divided into two
levels, with the upper level for celestial figures and the lower level for
terrestrial figures. The stage space was also divided into two sections,
backstage and performance area, which were linked by a pair of doors.
Scenes are set in any background.
Stage direction and location are indicated through music, dhruvagana. Singers and instrumentalist perform this duty. Music
and dance find a place in the theme itself. The play begins with a nandf followed by an introduction by
Stitradhiira. The prologue introduces the author and play and announces the
commencement of performance.
The exponent figures of the classical
Indian theatre according to Chatterjee (undated) include Bhasa, Kalidasa,
Shudraka, Vishakhadatta, Bhabavhuti among other playwrights. The Sanskrit
theatre is, however, an extinct theatre in this contemporary time. Ahuja
(2012:286) believes that “[it] is now, more or less, the theatre of the
academics who read plays in Sanskrit, talk broadly about classical dramaturgy,
do plays in school, colleges and universities with students or scholars”. This
is so due, among other reasons, to the reason that the language is not
decipherable, neither used by people except a very tiny minority; or only as a
religious or ritualistic language by Bharamis.
Conclusion
As already discussed in the
foregoing paragraphs, theatre and theatrical practice are unlike many other
historical artefacts and practice, for their origin remains very obscure. It is
perhaps due to that some accounts attribute that to the god, Brahma and other
numerous contentious assertions. Nonetheless, scholars have been and are being
putting up “evidences” to prove their various findings. All there are in place
are yet hypothetical postulations. Even these often discussed phenomena of
rituals of Greek, Sanskrit in India and so on despite all “proofs” are
debatable. Nothing is known for certain, authenticity is a mere chimera, to
borrow one scholar’s expression.
Reference:
Ahuja,
Chaman (2012). Contemporary Theatre of
India: An Overview. New Delhi: National Book Trust.
Clark, H. B
(1918). European Theories of the Drama.
Cincinnati: Steward and Kidd Company.
Chatterjee, M (undated). “Indian Theatre: Past
Perfect, Future Tense” from www.medialearning.in
(accessed on: 3rd September, 2013).
Devlin, Diana (1989). Mask & Scene: An Introduction to a World
View of Theatre. London: Macmillan.
John, Damen
(2009). Classical Drama and Theatre. United
State: Creative
Commons Attribution Publishers.
Jane, Hartmann (1977). History of Drama Therapy. New York:
Haskel House.
Kennedy,
Dennis (Ed.) (2011). Oxford Companion to
Theatre and Performance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Horrwitz,
E.P (1912). The Indian Theatre: A Brief
Survey of the Sanskrit Drama. Bombay: Blackie and Son Limited.
*Note Yet in Print:
Beyond everydayness
Theatre Architecture in Central Europe (Book).
NB:
I felt compelled to put this piece on my blog for the benefit of some
more students like me. It is my first write-up on the Indian Theatre; while writing
it, I realized that there is scanty of relevant literatures especially on the
internet. This shall be, I hope, an addition; and, I hope someday there would
be an avalanche of that.
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