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It is commonly believed that the traditional theatre in many ancient Indian cultures had religious and mythological attributes. Such a theatre is becoming increasingly irrelevant in the context of urbanised societies. Some consider the traditional theatre as a mere museum piece having only limited archival value. It is true that the traditional drama is mostly associated with 6

7 the religious rites also and that this type is more spectacular and richer in artistic techniques and content than the drama dealing with the social life. But few realise that the traditional theatre of both religious and secular attitudes and values is fully integrated with the unified character of life and depicts the total life of the people. One of the striking traits of the religiously motivated and ritualistic theatre of India is that it presents contemporary social life and sharply projects secular values. The social content is imparted into these plays through impromptu prose-dialogues often spoken by the jester and the minor characters. In the 'Song dialogues' the men and materials of the plays are kept in their superhuman divine positions. They are brought down to the human and social level of the actors themselves through impromptu Prakrt prose dialogues. Comments on social evils are often made with greater pungency in the secular plays, dealing with medieval legends, popular history and social themes. The element of dynamism is inherent in the very nature of the structure and the aesthetics of the traditional theatre. It does not become static and rigid with codified laws. It keeps changing and adapting itself to the new socio-cultural contamination, hybridisation and assimilation of new material and techniques constantly enlarging its dimensions in time and space. The religion-oriented traditional drama having evolved and grown in the temples during the medieval centuries, when left the temples and came on the streets in the form of a grand processional and

pageantry drama, it freely adopted and assimilated many elements from the social life of the people. It integrated into the main stream, manifestations of the social life of the people, their beliefs, customs ceremonies, their plastic and graphic arts, poetry music and dance. Artistic continuation and constant exchange of content and techniques in various art forms of folk and classical traditions is a feature of global aesthetic and cultural history. Such continuation is a case true to India also. 8 NATURE AND CONVENTIONS Indian traditional drama, like its counterpart in any other country, is the richest and most deep-rooted element of the traditional culture. It is a composite art in its most comprehensive sense of the term. Traditional theatre represents many stage conventions and dramatic practices of the Sanskrit theatre and it is also the inheritor of the medieval variety theatre. The convention-based theatre presents an interesting fusion of the realistic, stylised, illusionistic and presentational elements. It enjoys the freedom from the unities of time and place. It also determines the scheme of stylisation. There is great elaboration and improvisation. MUSIC AND DANCE The traditional theatre of various types and of different regions is operatic in character and the acting is highly stylised. Music and dance are essential and integral elements of the theatre and become important

9 factors in building up its distinctive character. The play is really sung and danced and spoken and enacted. Music is the very dynamics of the traditional theatre and it determines the space, the rhythm and movement of the drama. It grows from within the drama and is functional and organic. It accompanies the actor's entries and exits and helps in accentuating his gestures and movements. For example, in Kathakali, in the story of Narakasuravadha, the srngara of the celestial damsels (apsaras) and their kummi (a special type of dance) are described. This creates an atmosphere of easiness and happiness. But the next is the purappadu of Nakratundi. The music is changed and hence the atmosphere. Many instances like this can be seen in Kathakali, Kutiyattom and other performing arts. Music is highly stylised in Kathakali and Yaksagana. The drum is predominantly used in the traditional theatre and has great acoustic and dramatic value. The orchestra plays in union with the vocal line and repeats the melodic phrase giving relief to the actor to present choreographic patterns and enrich his gestures by an elaborate interpretation of the text. With dance-like movements, striking poses and codified gestures the play builds spectacle of choreographic beauty and pictorial charm. In the temple-based drama the dance content is very rich and highly developed, but in secular forms like Khyal and Terukuttu it is rather then, just enough to sustain the choreographic character of the play. The

music and the choreographic structures of the performance are interdependent and fully integrated. CONVENTIONS OF SPEECH The practice in the traditional theatre is guided by a set of conventions and the nature of stylisation. These conventions and the scheme of stylisation are determined by the staging conditions of the plays and dramatic values of the traditional theatre. There is a whole set of conventions determining the nature and the delivery of dramatic speech. Repetition, superimposition, simultaneous speaking and alternation of the speech between the character and the chorus are some of the devices of the speech delivery. The alternation between the singing of the chorus and the actor-dancer singing his lines or presenting a drama sequence is recitation, mime and dancing. There is the alternation of the prose and the verse dialogues and sometimes more than one language is used in dramatic dialogues. There are impromptu prose-dialogues having the nature of the secondary spoken word, elaborating the content of the song dialogues. The dialogues are often treated as comments and spoken or sung by a chorus. There are soliloquies, semi-soliloquies, and monologues. The speech treated through many conventions and presented as chanting, singing and rhythmic prose extends the range of the theatre and lives beyond the words. In the scheme of dramatic speech the use of chorus in most of the forms of Tamasa and Terukkuttu and the temple-based forms, like 10

T 1230 Rasalila, Ramalila and Ankia Natfall in line with the essential tenets of Natyadharmi. The chorus in Indian theatre has a different character though it performs many functions similar to that of the chorus in Greek theatre. PRELIMINARIES One of the many features of the traditional theatre is the elaborate purvaranga preliminary. The classical Sanskrit theatre observed elaborate preliminaries which have been described in great detail in the Natyasastra. The only surviving form of Sanskrit theatre, Kutiyattom performed in the temple-theatres of Kerala, follows the practice of the Sanskrit theatre and there is a great elaboration that it takes four to five days in the presentation of the preliminaries. There is a prelude, an invocatory song, formal presentation of the characters of the play, the introduction of the time and a discourse on some philosophical subject. The preliminaries in the traditional theatre are presented on the pattern of the Sanskrit theatre, in an adapted and simplified version. Sutradhara and vidusaka, the two stock characters are the main functionaries in the presentation down from the Sanskrit theatre. TIRASSILA The use of tirassila in many forms such as Rasalila, Yaksagana, Kutiyattom, Kathakali etc. is an interesting practice of the traditional theatre. A coloured piece of cloth, sometimes having two or three strips of different colours, is used on the stage. It is held by two stage 11

12 assistants and used several times during the course of a performance to manage the entries and exits of the characters and to monitor the time and space. On the bare and natural 'stage', just a floor-area or a platform stage, used for the traditional plays, the change of locale and time is managed by the use of tirassila. Thus the time and space are treated non-realistically and metaphysically. The tirassila device in Kathakali has been greatly cultivated and formalised. It is used to usher in certain types of characters, generally royal aggressive and the ferocious, such as Hanuman, Ravana, Bali and Duryodhana. ACTOR-AUDIENCE RELATIONSHIP Intimacy between the actors and audience is a factor, which vitally determines the nature of the Indian traditional theatre making it a participative theatre. Intimacy is achieved through many devices and conventions. Traditional theatre is predominantly an audience-conscious theatre. In case of the social and secular theatre, a performance is a community activity and the audience is deeply involved in it. For example in Mutiyettu one can see this relationship very well. In the battle between Kali and Darika the spectators will encourage them by standing on both sides and the performance of the comic character Kuli is fully appreciated if at all the audience is also active. In Kutiyattom and Kathakali for the character like ninam etc. also, audience's support and co-operation are needed.

ACTOR'S THEATRE According to the Indian classical theatre the acting is an audio-visual commentary and the actor as well as the audience participate in a highly concentrated art which calls for the utmost attention and absorption on both sides. The actor is well-versed in all sorts of the theatre-acting, mime, dance, music etc. Traditional theatre, by adopting certain practices and evolving many conventions, has strengthened the position of the actor and his art in many ways. This is a technique of 'trance' and of the integration of the actor's psychic and physical powers from the most intimate layers of his being. His refined instincts thus spring forth in a sort of 'trans-lumination'. In conclusion it can be said that Sanskrit drama originated from the primitive ballad poetry and including elements of popular dance and music, passing from its rough form came to be a fully developed and perfect form in the mighty hands of Bhasa, Asvaghosa, Sudraka, Kalidasa, Visakhadatta, Bhavabhuti etc. and then, degenerated in the hands of lesser play wrights, and became stereotyped. It combined the two cultures in itself, the pre-Aryan and the Aryan and also fused religion with the secular themes. Drama in general may be said to have evolved from two causes, each of them, lying deep in our nature. First, the instinct of imitation implanted in man from childhood; and no less universal is the pleasure felt in things imitated. The theory of imitation accepted by all the dramatic theoreticians, in one way or the other, pinpoints the fact that 13

14 man instinctively wants to imitate and reproduce what he observes, and he gains pleasure in his creation. Sanskrit drama also must have originated, like other arts, being aroused through this significant and psychological phenomenon. From the plays one can learn that Sanskrit theatre was sophisticated, if at times somewhat uneven in quality. Some of the finest poetry of the ancient world may be found in Sanskrit drama, and several of the ancient plays compare favourably with dramatic literature elsewhere in the ancient world. A survey of the plays and dramaturgical texts lead us to believe that the theatre was conventional. That is, it called upon actors and spectators alike to understand and decipher a complex code of gestures, movement patterns, and vocal or verbal expressions. Sanskrit theatre also was multidimensional. Dance and music contributed to the overall effect, although the extent of their interaction with dialogue and verse is far from certain. This was a theatre of imagination; costume and make-up were stylised and symbolic, not replicas of those of everyday life or of a particular historical period in the scenery was used sparingly, if ever, in the staging of plays. Special buildings appear to have been constructed for performances. Theatre had a sacred significance. Numerous rituals accompanied the construction of kuttambalam, mandapom etc., the stage was consecrated before performance, and from all the evidence, theatre served a religious function, as well as being entertaining and educational.

At no other time in India's long history has one genre of theatre been so universally understood and imitated throughout the sub-continent. This was primarily due to the predominance of the Sanskrit language, which was used in court and in religious rituals. Various forms of Prakrts (local languages and dialects) are also found in the surviving works. But Sanskrit was the language of major male characters; and although the theatre of this period thus had a multilingual character; it is regarded as Sanskrit rather than Prakrt theatre. Sanskrit theatre was the national theatre of its day, reflecting the dominance of civilization represented in the plays throughout India. As a court and temple-supported art, theatre was exclusive rather than popular in its appeal. Although Asia boasts of many other ancient civilizations, India seems to have been the first country of the continent to support an active, sophisticated theatre. And yet the theatre in India came into being at a relatively late date, compared to the development of theatre in Greece. However, the theatre finally took shape in India about the 2nd century B.C.. It confined virtually uninterpreted for at least twelve hundred years, and when it came to an end it did not disappear overnight. Beginning around the 10th century A.D. no more significant dramatic poets appeared on the scene, but from time thereafter, authors tried their hands at writing Sanskrit plays in the style of acknowledged classics. Thus one can see a continuity in Indian theatre which was becoming more developed and refined. Starting with the folk art forms. 15

like Teyyam, Padayani etc it travelled to Kutiyattom through Mutiyettu in which some classical touch is there. From Kutiyattom, which is the typical art form of Kerala's traditional theatre, Nangiarkuttu evolved. At the same time Krsnanattom was flourishing in which Nrtta was given more importance and acting was supported by music. Kathakali is the most refined from of all these which is blended with Natya, Nrtta, Nrtya, music, rhythm etc. The most advanced form of Indian traditional theatre is Tanatunatakam. This is a mixture of traditional and the modern theatre. By keeping the pattern of traditional theatre it makes appreciation of rasa more easy and transparent. 16