Asian Theater

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Origins and Overview

The Natya Shastra, written before 200 ad and attributed to a Hindu sage named Bharata Muni, is the world’s oldest, most complete manual for all aspects of performance. It details the requirements for theater architecture, costumes, actor training and performance, music, playwriting, and the emotional exchange that takes place between the audience and the actors. The book relates how the Hindu god Brahma created drama (natya) to entertain and to educate. While priests, musicians, and dancing nymphs were performing divinely created stories, jealous demons attacked the sacred stage. Brahma, however, created purifying rituals to include all beings—even demons.

From the 1st century to the 10th century, dramas written in Sanskrit, the ancient language of India, were performed in temples and at royal courts. Performance of Sanskrit drama ceased, however, as a result of foreign invasions and because the language was spoken only by the upper classes, providing only a limited, aristocratic audience. During the 15^th century, Islamic rulers, who then controlled northern India, forbade theater. However, local folk and devotional genres emerged elsewhere in India. Secular entertainment, puppetry, dance-dramas, and performances for religious minorities also flourished. In the 18th century Britain colonized India and introduced Western performance styles. In the 20th century, new genres appeared, including political protest plays and experimental combinations of European and traditional Indian drama. Indian poet and playwright Rabindranath Tagore won the 1913 Nobel Prize for literature. His plays include Raja (1910; The King of the Dark Chamber, 1914) and Raktakarabi (1924; Red Oleanders, 1925). Significant contemporary artists include playwright and director Badal Sircar, actor Tripti Mitra, director Uptal Dutt, and director and educator Ebrahim Alkazi.

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Major Genres and Their Development

Sanskrit drama was one of the earliest formal theatrical genres to appear in India. It conformed to the rules laid out by the Natya Shastra, with its lyrical poetry, happy endings, song, dance, and mime. Both sexes probably acted in these dramas, though actors did not always portray characters of their gender. Theaters seated about 400 people. The stage had a rear balcony and machinery to aid in depicting supernatural events, such as the appearance of heavenly nymphs. The most famous Sanskrit dramatists include Bhasa, Kalidasa, and Bhavabhuti. Bhasa composed plays based primarily on Ramayana and Mahabharata. His best work is Svapnavasavadatta (4th-5th century; The Vision of Vasavadatta). Kalidasa composed the most revered Sanskrit drama, Abhijnanashakuntala (4th century; Shakuntala and the Ring of Recollection). It tells of love, loss, a curse, and ultimate reunion between a king and a nymph’s daughter. Bhavabhuti’s greatest work is Utara-rāma-charita (8th century; The Later History of Rama). Mrichchhakatika (5th century; The Little Clay Cart), attributed to Shudraka, is one of the most popular Sanskrit works.

Scholars believe that some conventions of Sanskrit drama are preserved in kutiyattam, the country’s oldest continuously performed theatrical genre. In kutiyattam, which comes from the southwestern state of Kerala, actors perform ancient Sanskrit plays in India’s only permanent, traditional theater structures for Sanskrit drama. Ritual performances occur once yearly at two Hindu temples, Vatukumnathan and Irinjalagauda. Each play takes several nights to complete, three to eight hours per night. A tall, metal oil lamp on the stage provides dim light. Dance, song, chant, gestures with specific meanings, and exaggerated facial and eye expressions are accompanied by drums, cymbals, a conch shell, and a wind instrument called a kuzhal. Performers wear elaborate makeup and costumes.

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Several types of dance-dramas exist in India, including kathak, bharata natyam, and manipuri, but the most recognized is kathakali, from Kerala state. Kathakali originated in the 17th century. Its plots come from the Sanskrit epics Ramayana and Mahabharata, and the Puranas. Performers, who go through arduous training for six to ten years, wear brightly colored makeup in symbolic patterns and multilayered beards of paper and glue. Costumes usually include heavily layered, wide skirts and disk-shaped headdresses. Traditionally, performances lasted all night, but today they take only three or four hours. Actors dance, mime, and gesture while singers recite lyrical passages and dialogue. Drums, gongs, cymbals, harmonium, and conch shell accompany them. Kathakali may be performed in any locale for sacred or secular occasions.

Ramlila appeared in northern India in the 17th century. As a celebration of the life of Rama, the hero of Ramayana, Hindus consider it a part of their religious devotion. For Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, and members of India’s other minority religions, it symbolizes national unity and is a popular commercial enterprise. Each ramlila lasts several weeks. In addition to hundreds of amateur actors, performances feature elephants, camels, burning arrows, fireworks, elaborate floats, and chariots. Ramlila performances are staged at rivers, forts, and other unconventional performance spaces in villages and cities. Performers wear patterned makeup, which may be embellished with sequins. If they are playing demons, they may wear multiheaded masks or black makeup. Local folk music and, occasionally, sacred chants accompany the play. Today, versions of ramlila occur all over India, from September to November, and millions of people attend.

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Other South Asian Cultures

In Sri Lanka, Hinduism and Theravada Buddhism are the dominant religions and have contributed stories, characters, and ritual to the country’s performance styles. Theater genres include kolam, a masked dance-drama that usually tells comic tales; the nadagama, a weeklong episodic play probably introduced by Roman Catholic missionaries in the 19th century; and rukada, a puppet theater featuring marionettes that are about 1 m (about 3 ft) tall.

In 1947 areas of northern India populated primarily by Muslims became East and West Pakistan, and in 1971 East Pakistan became Bangladesh. Although Islam does not condone theater, performances of theater in Urdu, the official language of Pakistan, take place in urban areas. The first Urdu play was performed in 1853 at the court of Wajid Ali Shah of Oudh, in Lucknow (central India). Jatra, a Bengali-language genre, is performed in Bangladesh and eastern India. Formerly a religious genre, jatra is now secular and often highly political, featuring protest and satire. Settings and properties are minimal.

In Nepal, Mahayana Buddhist monks wearing large, colorfully painted masks perform the country’s most prominent dance-drama, the mani-rimdu. Performances take place in temple courtyards over three-day periods in May and November, and they celebrate Buddhism’s victory over Nepal’s traditional animism. Musical instruments include brass horns that are 3 m (10 ft) long, cymbals, and a trumpet made from a human thigh bone.