Theatres of Independence: Drama, Theory, and Urban Performance in India Since 1947 (review)

As part of the Studies in Theatre History and Culture series, Aparna Bhargava Dharwadker's Theatres of Independence is the first in-depth study of drama, theory, and urban performance in post-independence India. Owing to a lack of authoritative models and minimal scholarly exploration in contemporary Indian theatre, Dharwadker assiduously develops an innovative, albeit unconventional, method of shaping and presenting her research. In a two-part, structure she effectively offers both literary and performance analyses on a select number of works and juxtaposes them with archival research from judiciously chosen historical events. Somewhat interdisciplinary and at times exhaustive, Dharwadker's study is a vividly multidimensional commencement toward new developments and debates in modern Indian theatre scholarship.

In Part One, "The Field of Indian Theatre after Independence," Dharwadker establishes her research framework by looking at possible elements that helped construct the modern theatrical canon in India. She submits three essential proceedings as preliminary evidence for the evolution of a newly formed national canon: the 1943 inaugural conference held by the populist Indian People's Theatre Association, a 1956 elite drama seminar organized by the state-sponsored Sangeet Natak Akademi, and the 1989 multilingual Nehru Drama Festival. The juxtaposition of these proceedings reveals innovative theoretical ideologies concerning the institutional establishment of post-independence urban drama and establishes a conceptualized energy exhibited throughout the remainder of the book. Following this is an exploration of the complex overlaps between text and performance as they pertain to multilingual dramatic authorship, contemporary directing styles, and audience reception. Dharwadker argues that active language interrelations within contemporary Indian theatre have produced positive disseminations, whereas classicist discourses have subjected the field to ideological erasure.

The most laboriously researched section of Dharwadker's study is found in Part Two, "Genres in Context: Theory, Play, and Performance," where she prudently analyses both the literary and performative functions of a select grouping of plays. The lengthy examination of these works materializes as a wide-ranging structural pattern of postcolonial genre formation. This is accomplished by pulling from resources as diverse as mythic texts and historic tales, sociopolitical realisms, folk narratives, and intertextual associations. Chapter six begins with a concern for the utility of myth for displaying the allegorical conditions of the evolving independent nation. The chapter is centred around three authors' (re) creations of episodes from the epic Mahabharata, which define the nation's political and cultural existence while simultaneously developing fresh modes of dramatic expression (the works examined in this chapter are Dharamvir Bharati's Andha yug [1954], K.N. Panikkar's Urubhangam [1987], and Ratan Thiyam's Chakravyuha [1984]).

Chapter seven similarly utilizes keen play reading as a method for understanding and narrating national history but shifts the focus away from mythic texts and concentrates on historical fictions as a foundation for national identity construction. Dharwadker successfully argues that plays such as Mohan Rakesh's Ashadh ka ek din (1958), Girish Karnad's Tughlaq (1964), and Badal Sircar's Baki itihas (1965) provide alternative narratives that construct counter-histories for contemporary audiences whose ideologies challenge the more normative accounts of institutionalized history.

Dharwadker then moves into what are perhaps the two most compelling chapters in her study. Chapter eight explores sociorealistic representations of home and family as symbols for the postcolonial nation, in such plays as Vijay Tendulkar's Kanyadaan (1983), Mahesh Elkunchwar's Wada chirebandi (1985), and Cyrus Mistry's Doongaji House (1978). She effectively examines the resolute commitment of the realistic genre to create a consummate representation of contemporary domestic life and urban experience. Dharwadker also wisely incorporates the subjects of class, gender, and religious politics into her discussion of family-life.

Conversely, yet just as vitally, chapter nine examines plays found on the opposite end of the genre spectrum. Dharwadker claims that the alternatives to realism found in folk plays such as Girish Karnad's Hayavadana (1971), Chandrashekhar Kambar's Jokumaraswami...