Indian Theatre - Harvianti Fitri
Indian Theatre - Harvianti Fitri
Indian Theatre - Harvianti Fitri
Harvianti Fitri
183200010
HISTORY OF INDIAN THEATRE
• The history of theatre in India dates back around 5,000 years and is steeped in culture and tradition. In early
forms, the performances were often narrative including recitation, singing, and dancing. From Sanskrit dramas
to folklore to Western influences to contemporary works,
• The earliest contribution to the Indian theatre, dating between 2000 B.C.E. and the 4th century C.E., comes
from Bharata Muni, who wrote the 36 books of the Natyashastra, which describes a theory of theatrical
performance based on style and motion, rather than psychology. According to Bharata, the god Brahma leads
him to write the Natyashastra, and Bharata professes that theatre stems from the gods and teaches about duty.
The text encompasses all aspects of production from theatre architecture to make-up to the performer's
movements.
• The Natyashastra defines ten types of plays, and the two primary styles have 5-10 acts. The first main type is
the Natakas, depicting historical stories of gods, demons, and royalty with sweeping themes of the divine and
mythology. These plays are likened to Aristotelian tragedy, but they end resolving the cosmic order rather than
tragically. The second major genre is the Prakarana, focusing on invented stories of everyday characters
leading their daily lives, not royalty or deities. Prakarana plays are closely related to Aristotelian comedy.
THE PERIOD
• Indian theatre has three specific periods: the classical period, the traditional period, and the modern period.
Ending in about 1000 C.E., the classical period was dominated by the Natyashastra and Sanskrit drama.
Since plays were based on stories the audience already knew, like histories, folk legends, and epics, physical
elements and movement were heavily incorporated into the dialogue and performance.
• Kalidasa is known as the pre-eminent Sanskrit playwright, writing between the third and sixth centuries C.E.
His three major works, including Malavikagnimitra (Malavika and Agnimitra), Vikramorvashiya (Urvashi
Won by Valour), and Abhijnanashakuntala (The Remembrance of Shakuntala), depict stories of royalty and
myth in old-world India. Kalidasa is often considered the Indian Shakespeare.
• However, Bhasa is the oldest Sanskrit dramatist to give us complete plays, writing around the second century
C.E. He has 13 surviving dramas, and the famous, ancient Indian epic poem, the Mahabharata, is the source
for his first six one-acts. In addition, Shudraka was a fifth or sixth century playwright known for a Sanskrit
comedy, called Mricchakatika (The Little Clay Cart). An adaptation of this play was produced in 1924 in New
York and made into a movie entitled Utsav in 1984.
MODERN INDIA THEATRE
• Modern Indian theatre, has a legacy that is influenced by and draws inspiration from various sources. Modern
theatre, or historically, what can be clearly identified as the Western proscenium style of theatre, was not
introduced in India before the late eighteenth century at time of the consolidation of the British Empire in
various parts of India. It was through the British that Western proscenium style theatre reached Indian shores.
However, the first indigenous performance with native actors happened in 1795 when a Russian violinist by the
name of Herasim Stepanovich Lebedeff staged a Hindi and Bengali mixed-language version of a short play by
Paul Jodrell. Although a significant event on its own right, it did not really galvanize a movement as such but
planted its seeds. In the 1830s, under the patronage of the rich native families, we had the first Bengali-
language theatre, which was outside the traditional format of indigenous folk performance genres. However,
folk traditions, folk theatre and various other performative genres, indigenous to the soil have been available all
through, if not an unbroken, at least as a fractured tradition, and there is of course the venerable tradition of the
Sanskrit classical theatre that dates back far deeper in time. In the mean time, the British had established a
small professional theatre outfit in Calcutta and it was here that for the first time an Indian actor, Baishnab
Charan Auddy, played Othello in 1848. He was the second person of color in recorded history, after Ira
Aldridge in the US, ever to play Shakespeare’s tragic Moor.
REFERENCES
https://study.com/academy/lesson/indian-theatre-origins-types-characteristics.html
https://asiasociety.org/contemporary-indian-theatre-overview