“I am a big man: My dreams are bigger than me”: Ratan Thiyam

The Theatre of Ratan Thiyam , Chorus Repertory and Actor’s Training

Essay written by: Dr. Satyabrata Rout

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Ratan Thiyam is a man of multi-dimensional personality. At one hand he is an accomplished writer, poet, dancer, and painter and on other he keeps a strong political viewpoint and frequently raised his voice for human rights, against war and sufferings. He has developed a passion to serve people and work for society through theatre during his NSD days in early seventies. He knew the dreams could only be realised through a proper organization with a group of performers who could understand his ideology and execute them with faith and belief. In the quest of apprehending his vision, he returned back to his hometown at Imphal, Manipur after graduating from NSD, New Delhi in 1975. He knew it well that achieving the goal by doing regional theatre is not an easy job; it needs a life’s struggle.

North-Eastern part of India remains backward for many reasons. The major population of the frontier belongs to tribal communities, leaving no space for progressive thoughts. Moreover there was always turmoil of political fights. But somehow the valley of Manipur is different from other hilly regions. It has a strong ritualistic vaishnav tradition that forms its base. During the Gaudiya Vaishnava movements in 18^th century initiated by Sri chaitanya Dev of Navadwip, the Vaishnava culture was flourished into a highly devotional ritualistic tradition and formulated the socio-cultural behaviour of Manipuri people. The vaishnav tradition gave rise to many ritualistic activities, which reflects in art and culture of the Manipuri society. Shringarika- Bhkti (devotion through love), being the major component of all the cultures of Manipur is expressed through various performance traditions. These performance traditions are directly related to temple culture and Radha-Krishna cult. Pung Cholom and Sankirtan, Rasa-lila, Laiharaoba, Thang-Ta, Sumanga lila, etc. are some of the traditional performing art forms, grew in the soil as a cross breed of bhakti and tribal culture. But with all the strong heritage of culture, rituals and other homogenous activities, Manipur has politically suffered every time. Unrest and communal rites break frequently in the land and people suffer attacks from Border countries. In the midst of these socio-political conditions, Thiyam started struggling for a progressive art movement in the mid seventies.

To start a career in theatre in a place where there is no scope for further development, Thiyam dreamt of connecting this isolated North-East valley with the mainstream theatre in global perspective. He began motivating youths from various tribes to theatre. The drama school training helped him to inspire few like-minded people; Bhogen, Ibomcha, Ibachoba and Ravindra, etc. who came forward initially to work in his mission. In the beginningThiyam with the help of these local youths conducted few workshops by adopting realistic method of acting training for his plays as learnt from the drama school. But soon he understood the limitation of urban training method in the soil of Manipur. A Manipuri youth is more exposed to vibrant ritualistic and tribal cultures as a part of cultural and social heritage. Moreover the urban theatre training could not be easily adopted by the physical and psychological structures of the native youths; they have different ecological, geographical and social conditions, who can be more expressive through the native cultures than an urban training system developed in West. Immediately Thiyam shifted his perception towards the local indigenous culture and gradually developed a new theatre training system during the course of time. Being a student of the legendary director, E. Alkazi, Ratan Thiyam was well exposed to Western, Greek and Oriental theatre that guided him in developing a global understanding. He developed a method with the amalgamation of the rooted tradition of Manipur and contemporary global theatre. While looking Thiyam in the perspective of another noted director of Manipur, H. Kanhailal, we found that, both had struggled vividly to achieve regional identity in their theatre practices. Kanhailal rejected urban training system and developed a discipline, borrowing elements from the local day-to-day activities, since he found them more comfortable for his rural actors[1]. Ratan Thiyam involved gurus and experts from various cultural milieus to impart physical and vocal training to his actors in order to bring discipline and order in the physical and vocal system of the actors. He knew that, to express in his kind of theatre, the actors should develop a discipline of voice and body.

Ratan Thiyam explains:

“In general the infrastructure of my productions is based on actor’s physical appearances. The body language is the main tool to carry the expression. For that my actors work on their body structure, focusing on spine and knee joints. When the spine and knees of the body system are in a bend position, it influences the voice significantly. To bring right emotion through voice in different situations, the actor has to work on his standing and sitting gestures. It also works in reverse way. Physical gestures and voice culture work reciprocally in my productions[2]”.

To execute this idea of shaping the physical structure of the actors, he introduced Laihui, Lai-haraoba, Pena, Cholom, Pung, Thanh-Ta, Rasa-lila and many tribal and folk dance forms into his training. The movement and rhythm of these forms were learnt rigorously from the gurus, without which his actors cannot express. Since Thiyam believes on the holistic approach of theatre, where each actor has to express through dance, movement, improvisation, music, chanting, singing, speech delivery, narrative style, mime, and at the same time interact with space and visuals, it became essential to go through a painstaking process. Thiyam used to tell his actors; “These forms are like weapons for a warrior, which can be applied at the time of need[3].”  

Out of this concept of new genre theatre and innovative training system, the famous Chorus Repertory Theatre was born on the 1^st April, 1976 at Imphal. A Manipuri play that instigated Thiyam’s methodology was “Sanarembi Chaisra”, presented by the repertory in 1977. This is considered as the first play of the repertory and was travelled outside of Manipur to be performed in Delhi at Sriram Centre. Slowly but steadily, Chorus Repertory Theatre gained popularity out side the state and was invited in many theatre festivals. It acquired a small piece of land at the outskirt of Imphal city and with the help of few actors; Thiyam was engaged in fulfilling his dream.  Though the existing campus of the repertory was developed gradually by acquiring the land bit by bit in the course of time, to start with, he constructed few huts and a workspace for his theatre and training purpose where the actors started dwelling; it became a residential repertory. During this time, in the early 80’s, Thiyam directed three plays, Urubhangam, Imphal Imphal and Karnabharam, in which he experimented with the Manipuri martial art Thang-ta along with the other traditional dance forms; Pung cholom, Rasa lila, etc. By that time Chorus had developed into an institution having a small but exotic campus. Ratan Thiyam received worldwide recognition as a genius of theatre and Chorus entered in to the international arena with the production of Chakravyuha in 1984. Making of Chakravyuha was the turning point of Thiyam’s career. It was prepared under the Sangeet Natak Akademi’s young directors’ scheme to promote young theatre practitioners of the country as a part of Theatre of Roots movement, initiated by Dr. Suresh Awasthi, the founder chairman of Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi. Chakravyuha, not only brought name and fame to Thiyam and his Chorus Repertory in the country, it bagged the most prestigious award “The Grand Fringe Award” at the Edinburg Theatre Festival in 1987. The play succeeded in setting a trend of twentieth century Indian theatre in global arena. Michael Coveney, the renowned UK based theatre critic and author writes in Financial Times, London about Chakravyuha’s histrionic presentation at Fringe Festival.

“I have not yet seen Peter Brook’s acclaimed epic staging of the Mahabharata, which begins its farewell world tour in Zurich this Saturday, but this remarkable Indian company from the Manipur valley in the North East of the continent has all the excitement, vigour and narrative simplicity of a Bruce Lee film or the more recent Golden Child...

...There are battles, processions, and banner waving soldiers, undulating military choreography, thrilling exhibition of martial arts. The music is exquisite, played from the wings on cymbals, drums, gongs, and a celeste. Now this really some thing worthy of a great international festival...[4]”

After the grand success of the play at Edinburg Theatre festival, invitations flung in to present the play at numerous theatre festivals over the world. The repertory became a touring company, performed in more than hundred theatre festivals across the globe. It travelled in entire Europe, USA, Latin American countries and the Eastern world, which include, Japan, China, Chorea, Thiland, Austrelia, etc. All the succeeding productions of Chakravyuha; Andhayug, Urubhangam, Uttar Priyadarshi, Ritusamgharam, Nine hills One Valley, Prologue, When We Dead Awaken, King of Dark Chamber, etc. grabbed immediate attention and received international invitations to participate in numerous festivals and occasions across the globe.

Chakravyuha placed Chorus Repertory Theatre in the forefront of the tradition. Under the guidance of Thiyam, Chorus developed a particularly rich form of theatre, combining modern dramatic techniques with the enormous variety of traditional styles of the valley. It drew on and fused these styles to arrive into a dramatic spectacle, combining dance, drama, mime, martial arts and ancient rituals. With all these creative inputs to the repertory company, Thiyam also started expecting the same high-level commitment from his actors. They are supposed to live in the campus and work professionally with dedication to develop a work-culture. To make their ends meet the actors adopted some other vocations, like; diary, fishery and poultry in the campus and engaged round the year in researching a particular training system, which becomes a part of their regular curriculum. To achieve the desired expression as per the demand of the production suit to Thiyam’s imagination, the actors have to work on their self; physical, oral and intellectual level, even more than a year prior to the productions. This total understanding of the traditional forms, central to their work, forms the base to develop a new approach on training method, a hybrid of old and new techniques. Stylization being the prime mode of Thiyam’s expression brought many skills and craft to the training system. Its reflection from text to performance is felt in every smallest components of his creation. The actors has to emphasize simple oral effect by physically thrusting the words, in which their entire body is involved to create the meaning. This physical portrayal is a distinctive feature of Ratan Thiyam's style. The actor's body moves in internal and external rhythm to the performance text. Thiyam works on varied breathing techniques to create a distinctive language of expression for each character. We can perceive all the techniques in his productions. Lets take Macbeth as an example to understand his techniques. Each character in this production stands and walks with bending knees as if clinching to the earth. The movements are derived after a keen observation of the tribal communities and their day today behaviours; their regular habits of climbing trees, swimming the river, walking on the landscapes, etc. The steady, slow and controlled movements and gestures of the characters in the play generate a definite sound and oral pattern for the actors and generates excitement and interest in viewing the show. At the same time it also projects the inner psychological condition of the characters, passing through in different situations of the play. This kind of performance allows the audience to comprehend the conflict and tension of the characters that penetrates in their mind slowly and gradually. The controlled movements of the actors with the help of their spine and knees position and projection of the voices from various resonators derived from their gestures and postures make Thiyam’s productions different from the general trend of contemporary Indian theatre practices. This innovative discipline of performance practice, spectacular aural and visual aesthetic, and potent thematic explorations, placed him in the company of Tadashi Suzuki, Peter Brook, and Jerzy Grotowski.

Apart from developing a systematic training system for his actors, Thiyam also gave equal importance on the technical aspects of theatre. As it was made clear from the beginning, Thiyam’s theatre is an amalgamation of acting and design where equal emphasis is given to both the components; stagecraft was introduced as an integral part of the training to the actors. His actors not only became trained in acting, they had to learn weaving, tailoring, knitting, carpentry, cane-craft, papier-mâché work, plaster of Paris and clay moulding, Fibre glass work, scene painting, etc. in order to create a holistic theatre atmosphere.  The actors prepare sets, masks, props and anything related to performances as a part of their responsibility and professional endeavour. As the noted columnist Kavita Nagpal points out;

“The actors of the Chorus Repertory craft and create their own props thus establishing an intimate relationship and making them indivisible parts of the character they are portraying.[5]” 

In the year 2002 Chorus Repertory added another wings to its repertory at the outset of its silver jubilee celebration. It was the Shrine Theatre, a 200 capacity auditorium with all modern technical facilities. The architectural beauty of this intimate theatre is drawn from the Buddhist architecture of Thailand, designed by him.            

Over the years Chorus Repertory grew into an international centre for theatre and performance studies and attracted people from across the globe. Scholars, practitioners and intellectuals started pouring in to the campus, which resulted in developing a global dialogue on contemporary theatre practices. Peter Brook, Eugeneo Barba, Richard Schechner, Tadashi Suzuki, Grotowski, and many international theatre personalities at Chorus brought with them an air of new theatre sensibility and Chorus Repertory Theatre could able to find an important space in the arena of world theatre. Ratan Thiyam became the ambassador of Indian contemporary theatre practices.  His own words depict his personality as once in a  casual mood he told me laughingly;

“I am a big man; my dreams are bigger than me”.

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(This essay is under copyright act. No part is permitted to be copied or produced in any form.

The essay is only for reading purpose)

(Note: The essay is an excerpt from my D.Lit thesis on “Dialectics of New Direction”)

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Dr. Satyabrata Rout- Associate Professor, Dept. of Theatre Arts, University of Hyderabad, India

Reference materials

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[1] Elaborate discussion on Kanhailal’s training system is in the net blog.

[2] Interview of Ratan Thiyam, Nov-2013, Imphal.

[3] Interview of Bhogen Singh in Nov. 2013 at Chorus Repertory Theatre, Imphal.

[4] Indians on the Fringe, Michael Coveney, Financial Times, 20^th August 1987, London.

[5] The Theatre of Thiyam: Kavita nagpal, The Theatre India: Journal, NSD Publication, Issue-9, May 2004, New Delhi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO-5d0WA4mM&feature=youtu.be


Watch this short documentary on my work
Directed by: Ruth Estrada, Brooklin College, City University of New York

Re-Directing Theatre: The Training

Dr. Satyabrata Rout

(Copyright reserved)

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Actors learning Indian gestures (Chhau) for the play: Urubhangaml
East-15 Acting School, England

Early Influence:

Post independence Indian theatre has witnessed many experiments, contradiction of thoughts and multiple conceptual ideologies. New genre directors have emerged out of the socio-political and cultural expressions of the community to lead the contemporary theatre. History has witnessed the journey of post-independence Indian theatre movement, which passes through diversified routes to give rise to new forms, new styles and meaning. Interpretation of the thematic presentation of the productions has considerably changed from its textual analysis by the hand of the directors. We have already discussed how Indian theatre suffered a major set back during the colonial period for which it was essential to search and find our own identity in the postcolonial time. The search led us to connect with our tradition, which lost its identity during colonia India. A countrywide movement was started; The Theatre of Roots Movement.  The movement was initiated during the 5^th decade, which gained momentum in 70s ^and 80s of the Twentieth Century. The search resulted in synthesising a kind of theatre, which is Indian from its vary core of nature and springs out of the indigenous culture and social values. The early directors who initiated the roots movement, viz. K.N Panikkar, Habib Tanvir, B.V Karanth, Shiela Bhatia, etc. have creatively linked the intangible lost heritage of the country with modern urban Indian Theatre. Habib Tanvir successfully discovered his theatre expression by going into the root of the culture and adopting the folk and tradition of a particular region, i.e. Chhattisgarh. Not only he explored the folk culture of a particular region to develop his own style of presentation, he gave recognition to a rural based lesser known theatrical form; Nachha. As a part of the early directors of the roots movement, Habib Tanvir has never used the rural forms to create his movements and speeches to express his art form; he moulded his theatre with the spirit of the folk tradition and explored the energy of the folk behaviour into his productions. Thus all his plays remain contemporary, modern and flexible by the power of the rural raw energy. Unlike Habib Tanvir Panikkar’s theatre in Kerala is realised through a completely different source, though both the theatre visionaries are the initiators of “Theatre of Roots movement”.  While Habib Tanvir’s theatre is the product of the amalgamation of urban and rural folk-based culture, Panikkar plunged into the deep ocean of Indian Classical tradition by following the heritage of Kathakali, Kuttiyattam, and Kalaripaitu martial art. The high discipline of Natyashastra tradition remained the source and force of Panikkar’s theatre. At the time when Habib Tanvir was engaged in experimenting on the potential of the folk forms and its application in to modern theatre b with the help of Lokadharmi tradition, almost during the same period of time Panikkar was searching his theatre through Natyadharmi principles. As a Sanskrit scholar, Panikkar reinvented, redefined and restructured the Classical Indian Theatre in the contemporary time by presenting Bhasa, Kalidasa and Bhavavuti in Sanskrit. Panikkar’s production of Sakuntala, Urubhangam, Madhyam-Vyayog, Theyyam-Theyyam, Mudra Rakhyash, etc. are as relevant in the current time as they were thousand years before.

The roots movement took a different turn in 70s with B.V Karanth as a creative director who brought with him the ritualistic and ethnic Natyadharmi tradition of South India by his birth and inherited the flexible improvisational convention of the Lokadharmi tradition of North India by his acquired knowledge of proficiency. The true union of Indian culture took shape with the experiments of B.V Karanth. It happened because of his travelling attitude, which started from his childhood. Anew theatre was born out of the roots movement; The theatre of Hybridity. 

Developing Training System

While looking into the contemporary situation of Indian theatre in 50s, it became necessary to formulate a kind of training system that systematises the performances. The Sangeet Natak Akademi seminar in 1956 opened windows for discussions on new Indian theatre and to decide its future.

E. Alkazi emphasised on Training by quoting;

“Training should essentially a formative process, with the emphasis on the creativity of the student himself. There is therefore no question of shortcuts, or the imparting of the so-called professional ‘technique’ or ‘tricks of the trade’, or successful ways of playing different types of parts”[1].   

For him theatre training should be institutionalised, not the way Indian ancient Gurukul system of training that is found in the tradition, but an institution, which should be modern in approach and can able to impart a disciplined training on all aspects of theatre; Indian and western. We all know that Classical Indian theatre has a long legacy of rigorous training system, still stands affirm across the time. But the training is one-dimensional focusing on a particular style of presentation. But the modern training system should not be confined to any particular style or form rather exposed to various tricks and trades; as conceived by E. Alkazi in his talk in the SNA seminar in1956. (We have discussed about the origin and functioning of NSD and other training institutions in previous chapter).

Hopefully Parsi Theatre has institutionalised actors’ training through various contemporary means for the first time, but not the way, a modern urban and semi-urban theatre functions. Since Parsi theatre primarily had to depend on dramatic text, it had to emphasise on voice culture, speech delivery, singing ability, and melodramatic presentation by imitating professional European theatre companies. For each faculty, a teacher was deputed to impart training. It was not essential to interpret a Parsi production since the playwright’s text was considered as the final; the presentation was important. Apart from the training of the actors, Parsi theatre introduced stage technique as a major spectacle of the production. These spectacular grandeurs are borrowed from 19^th Century English theatre those came to entertain British nobles in colonial India. The set technicians and painters tried to imitate the stage tricks and techniques and adopted them into our Parsi theatre presentations. As a result painted sceneries, cut scenes and stage gimmicks were introduced into the theatre and became an integral part of the productions. The style of playwriting and presentation were decided accordingly. A Parsi actor had to sing and narrate his text loudly to reach a large gathering in front of a painted curtain that serves the locale of the play. This became the style of presentation of Parsi drama; exaggerated and melodramatic portrayal of characters. During scene changing, while the technicians were engaged in putting up new sets by changing the old sceneries, comic interlude scenes and duet songs were enacted to keep the audience entertained and engaged. With all the exaggerations and artificiality, Parsi theatre is credited for formulating a systematic training for actors and technicians. We can find a glimpse of the training and discipline in few of Indian popular theatre culture, like in mobile theatre of Assam, in Surabhi Theatre of Andhra Pradesh and in Jatra tradition of Bengal and Orissa.

Indian Theatre discipline and contemporary Training

It is a mater of fact that a major segment contemporary theatre across the globe is highly influenced by Indian theatre discipline and tradition. To bring out the inner truth of the actor, it became essential to align his physical being, his vocabulary, his mind and soul into a single and focused entity. It has been realised that; the modern actor has lost the method that synchronises his body, mind and soul. The unifies rhythm of these three essential elements of the performer is lost in the midst of industrialisation, urbanisation and socio-political conditions of the world, which is apprehended in the post-war time in the West. With the emergence of various new presentation styles that challenge the realistic acting method of presentation, codified by Constantine Stanislavsky in the beginning of 20^th century in West, alternative looking into the world culture became important and essential by the progressive theatre community globally. The training of the actors and the ensuing performances with the help of parallel discipline apart from the method acting became inevitable to envision a new genre theatre; the post-war theatre in the West. The actor’s training through a systematic process proved to be an essential element in contemporary theatre. The actor trainers, the directors and visionaries in the West opened up their windows to look into alternative theatre discipline, which was not there in the Western culture before. Moreover both the wars (1^st and 2^nd) have almost destroyed the tradition of the West that continued from the period of Greek, Rome and medieval time. The socio-economical and political situations of the country also hold responsibility in bringing out new psychological based theatre culture in Europe in the mid fifties leaving behind the Stanislavsky system of acting, the representational style; the imitation of life. Bertolt Brecht hopefully is the first-ever European theatre director and author who approached for an anti-illusionist acting technique by adopting theatrical elements from Oriental tradition. Brecht’s theatre challenged the western practice in the 2^nd half of twentieth century and offered an interesting parallel to Stanislavsky and Meyerhold.  His observation of the style of presentation of the Beijing opera in China and its application into his productions developed into a new theory; The Theory of Alienation, which was completely new to the western theatre before Brecht. Brecht’s theatre has highly influenced a wide range of theatre practitioners, actor-trainers and directors of the contemporary world; Grotowski, Peter Brook, Eugenio Barba, August Boul etc.

The inter-cultural collaboration of theatre training has immersed out of the synthesis of Eastern and Western culture in the recent years. Indian theatre discipline and the treatise of Natyashastra has been analysed with a western sensibility by the scholars of art, literature and performance. The scrupulous and systematic training of actor’s body, voice and mind, which has developed through a series of training process in Natyashastra has been redefined by the scholars of the west. Most of the world famous directors and scholars of theatre looked back to Indian theatre to learn and adopt its long tradition of discipline. What is there in Indian theatre that attracts so many scholars and in which way it influences the world performative culture? The answer itself lies in its genesis. Unlike Western theatre practice, Indian theatre discipline has never been based upon any materialistic ideology. Conceptually Indian theatre believes on ‘performance’, means yagnyan; an offering in the ritualistic activities performed by the actor as well as the audience. The roots can be traced in its tradition; religious, ritualistic and metaphysical by nature. The performative language of Indian theatre cannot be structured in a different perspective living behind its life philosophy, as we know theatre is a derivative term of life itself. Indian theatre embodies life, not the way we usually perceive and interact but the way we feel, experience and interpret in the light of culture and philosophy. This makes Indian theatre-performance abstract, non-representational, metaphorical, symbolic. These essential qualities elevate the performance into an abstract visual poetry. The rigorous training system of Indian theatre creates a kind of discipline that makes the actor live in a state of blissful moment while his inner truth leads the audience to enjoy the rasa (sentiment) and ananda (bliss) through the medium of performance. Irrespective of all the elements of theatre two things becomes significant in the training system; i.e. holding the character and the subsequent release of the rasa (sentiment). In Natyashastra tradition, the process of conceiving a character is completely different from the western method of characterisation, which draws attention of the scholars and researchers time and again. The presence of Patra (Vessel) that holds the charitra (character) makes Indian theatre irreplaceable in the global perspective. The inner reality of the character is reflected in its full spirit and colour through the actor’s stylised movements during the performance. Like a container, the actor’s physical being holds a character and releases it at the time of need of the plot, to continue the performance. This takes place during a state of Satvika (spiritual moment) by combining all the three other abhinayas (acting); Angika (Physical), Vachika (vocal), Aharya (Costumings, etc.). When something is kept in a vessel, the vessel never lost its identity and the object retains its purity.  In the similar method the performer becomes the Patra (container) that contains the inner being of the character without loosing its identity, sanctity and self. The performer’s physical being works as a mould, which shapes the character according to the style of the presentation. While presenting the character, the former never imitates the life in its outer form. Instead of pretending the character, an Indian actor creates a series of abstract images with the help of his physical and vocal training. As Grotowski rightly said;

“ There is enough pretence in life anyway, why add to it by working in the theatre.”[2]

An Indian performer always embodies the essence of life and tries to find a metaphysical behaviour of life in the form of metaphor and symbolic representation, which he realises through abstraction and non-representation. In the process of presentation he never enacts, he performs the enactment. Accordingly the Indian training system has developed. It has developed to prepare the body and voice of the performer to hold the character like a container.

Along with the physical presentation, spiritual disposition is also quite important in the Indian theatre training and practice. To attain the spirituality during the performance and to live in a state of blissful solitude the performer has to strip out his external and peripheral behaviour that clinches him with the outer world. This yogic state of being is essential in the actor’s training process and has been codified in the Indian training system. At the time of concentration the outer world vanishes and ‘self’ comes out in its purest form. Rest of the elements become un-important except the performer and the audience. Grotowski, the Polish director has studied this oriental performative culture and understood the actor’s training process of attaining spirituality. He developed a training that emphasises on the actor’s trans. He called his actor ‘The holy actor’. He emphasised on finding a proper spectator-actor relationship for each type of performance and embodying the decision in physical arrangements. To bring out a system that eliminates everything theatrical, he found possibilities in Chinese, Indian and Japanese theatre. The common phenomenon that separates these theatres from the west is the participation of the audiences as well as the performers in the performance, where both the groups involve in the activity like a ritual. This essentiality of actor-spectator relationship, which forms the backbone of theatre irrespective of its form and culture motivated Grotowski to conceive the idea, that;

“By gradually eliminating whatever proved superfluous, we found that theatre can exist without make-up, without autonomic costume and scenography, without a separate performance area (stage), without lighting and sound effects, etc. It cannot exist without the actor-spectator relationship of perceptual, direct, ‘live’ communication. This is an ancient theoretical truth, of course, but when rigorously tested in practice, it undermines most of our usual ideas of theatre. It challenges the notion of theatre as a synthesis of disparate creative disciplines- literature, sculpture, painting, architecture, lighting, acting[3].”

(Continued...)

N.B: No part of this essay may be reproduced in any form by any means without the permission of the author. 

Dr. Satyabrata Rout; The Author

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[1] The training of the actors (Lecture delivered by Alkazi in the drama seminar organized by SNA, Delhi in the year 1956): Indian Drama in retrospect; Edited by J. Kastuar; SNA Hope India Publication, Delhi: Page- 360.

[2] An interview with Mariusz Orski:  Theatre India, May 1999 Issue, NSD publication: page-106.

[3] Towards a Poor Theatre: Jerzy Grotowski; Originally published in Odra no 9, Wroclaw, 1965.