Utpal Dutt and Political Theatre in Postcolonial India

Utpal Dutt and Political Theatre in Postcolonial India PDF Author: Mallarika Sinha Roy
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009264095
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 147

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Book Description
Among the most significant playwrights and theatre-makers of postcolonial India, Utpal Dutt (1929–1993), was an early exponent of rethinking colonial history through political theatre. Dutt envisaged political theatre as part of the larger Marxist project, and his incorporation of new developments in Marxist thinking, including the contributions of Antonio Gramsci, makes it possible to conceptualise his protagonists as insurgent subalterns. A decolonial approach to staging history remained a significant element in Dutt's artistic project. This Element examines Dutt's passionate engagement with Marxism and explores how this sense of urgency was actioned through the writing and producing of plays about the peasant revolts and armed anti-colonial movements which took place during the period of British rule. Drawing on contemporary debates in political theatre regarding the autonomy of the spectator and the performance of history, the author locates Dutt's political theatre in a historical frame.

Utpal Dutt and Political Theatre in Postcolonial India

Utpal Dutt and Political Theatre in Postcolonial India PDF Author: Mallarika Sinha Roy
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009264095
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 147

Get Book

Book Description
Among the most significant playwrights and theatre-makers of postcolonial India, Utpal Dutt (1929–1993), was an early exponent of rethinking colonial history through political theatre. Dutt envisaged political theatre as part of the larger Marxist project, and his incorporation of new developments in Marxist thinking, including the contributions of Antonio Gramsci, makes it possible to conceptualise his protagonists as insurgent subalterns. A decolonial approach to staging history remained a significant element in Dutt's artistic project. This Element examines Dutt's passionate engagement with Marxism and explores how this sense of urgency was actioned through the writing and producing of plays about the peasant revolts and armed anti-colonial movements which took place during the period of British rule. Drawing on contemporary debates in political theatre regarding the autonomy of the spectator and the performance of history, the author locates Dutt's political theatre in a historical frame.

Utpal Dutt and Political Theatre in Postcolonial India

Utpal Dutt and Political Theatre in Postcolonial India PDF Author: Mallarika Sinha Roy
Publisher:
ISBN: 1009264087
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 84

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Book Description
Among the most significant playwrights and theatre-makers of postcolonial India, Utpal Dutt (1929-1993), was an early exponent of rethinking colonial history through political theatre. Dutt envisaged political theatre as part of the larger Marxist project, and his incorporation of new developments in Marxist thinking, including the contributions of Antonio Gramsci, makes it possible to conceptualise his protagonists as insurgent subalterns. A decolonial approach to staging history remained a significant element in Dutt's artistic project. This Element examines Dutt's passionate engagement with Marxism and explores how this sense of urgency was actioned through the writing and producing of plays about the peasant revolts and armed anti-colonial movements which took place during the period of British rule. Drawing on contemporary debates in political theatre regarding the autonomy of the spectator and the performance of history, the author locates Dutt's political theatre in a historical frame.

Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance

Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance PDF Author: Nandi Bhatia
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472024620
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
Despite its importance to literary and cultural texts of resistance, theater has been largely overlooked as a field of analysis in colonial and postcolonial studies. Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance seeks to address that absence, as it uniquely views drama and performance as central to the practice of nationalism and anti-colonial resistance. Nandi Bhatia argues that Indian theater was a significant force in the struggle against oppressive colonial and postcolonial structures, as it sought to undo various schemes of political and cultural power through its engagement with subjects derived from mythology, history, and available colonial models such as Shakespeare. Bhatia's attention to local histories within a postcolonial framework places performance in a global and transcultural context. Drawing connections between art and politics, between performance and everyday experience, Bhatia shows how performance often intervened in political debates and even changed the course of politics. One of the first Western studies of Indian theater to link the aesthetics and the politics of that theater, Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance combines in-depth archival research with close readings of dramatic texts performed at critical moments in history. Each chapter amplifies its themes against the backdrop of specific social conditions as it examines particular dramatic productions, from The Indigo Mirror to adaptations of Shakespeare plays by Indian theater companies, illustrating the role of theater in bringing nationalist, anticolonial, and gendered struggles into the public sphere. Nandi Bhatia is Associate Professor of English at the University of Western Ontario.

The Rights of Man

The Rights of Man PDF Author: Utpal Dutt
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788170463313
Category : Bengali drama
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
Utpal Dutt (1929 93), playwright, director and actor, an inspiration and role model for the activist theatre person. Whether through the proscenium theatre, street performance, the traditional strolling theatre-in-the-round, or cinema, Dutt tried to take revolutionary theatre to the widest mass of people, with political messages for every turning point in a highly sensitive and rapidly changing political scenario, redefining his relationship with the political leadership again and again, getting into violent confrontations with various forces, being driven underground, and getting jailed in the process. His legacy of plays and other writing remain a valuable chapter in Indian theatre history. Rights of Man is the first English-language translation of Maanusher Adhikaré, Dutt s landmark play dramatizing the infamous Scottsboro Trials of African-American boys in the American South of the 1930s. A critical introduction explores the historical context, problems of dramatic translation, and postcolonial aspects of the play. Includes an extensive bibliography and three crucial appendices: other American Scottsboro plays such as Langston Hughes Scottsboro Limited (1931) and Edgar Nkosi White s Ghosts: Live from Galilee (1993) and Judge James Horton s historic trial opinions published in 1931.

Decolonising African Theatre

Decolonising African Theatre PDF Author: Samuel Ravengai
Publisher:
ISBN: 100927144X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 82

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Book Description
Decolonisation can be pursued in different ways. After many years of developing a critical language to engage coloniality, the most urgent need in African theatre is to develop new theories and methods in our manufactories. This Element uses Afroscenology as a theory to read and comment on African theatre. The Element particularly focuses on the history of laboratories in which it was tested and emerged, the historicization of rombic theatre and the crafting of a theory of the playtext which has been named theatric theory to distinguish it from the Aristotelian dramatic theory. The second dimension of the theory is the performatic technique. This Element also explain Afrosonic mime through examples drawn from the workshops conducted in training performers.

An Introduction to Post-Colonial Theatre

An Introduction to Post-Colonial Theatre PDF Author: Brian Crow
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521567220
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
In this book Brian Crow and Chris Banfield provide an introduction to post-colonial theatre by concentrating on the work of major dramatists from the Third World and subordinated cultures in the first world. Crow and Banfield consider the plays of such writers as Wole Soyinka and Athol Fugard and his collaborators from Africa; Derek Walcott from the West Indies; August Wilson and Jack Davis, who write from and about the experience of Black communities in the USA and Australia respectively; and Badal Sircar and Girish Karnad from India. Although these dramatists reflect diverse cultures and histories, they share the common condition of cultural subjection or oppression, which has shaped their theatres. Each chapter contains an informative list of primary source material and further reading about the dramatists. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of theatre and cultural history.

The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance Historiography

The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance Historiography PDF Author: Tracy C. Davis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351271709
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 972

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Book Description
The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance Historiography sets the agenda for inclusive and wide-ranging approaches to writing history, embracing the diverse perspectives of the twenty-first century and Critical Media History. Written by an international team of authors whose expertise spans a multitude of historical periods and cultures, this collection of fascinating essays poses the central question: "what is specific to the historiography of the performative?" The study of theatre, in conjunction with the wider sphere of performance, involves an array of multi-faceted methods for collecting evidence, interpreting sources, and creating meaning. Reflecting on issues of recording — from early modern musical scores, through VHS-technology to latest digital procedures — and on what is missing from records or oblique in practices, the contributors convey how theatre and performance history is integral to social and cultural relations. This expertly curated collection repositions theatre and performance history and is essential reading for Theatre and Performance Studies students or those interested in social and cultural history more generally.

Modern Asian Theatre and Performance 1900-2000

Modern Asian Theatre and Performance 1900-2000 PDF Author: Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr.
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 140817720X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Modern Asian Theatre and Performance 1900 – 2000 is a ground-breaking survey, tracking the advent of modern drama in Japan, India, China, Korea and Southeast Asia. It considers the shaping power of realism and naturalism, the influence of Western culture, the relationship between theatrical modernisation and social modernisation, and how theatre operates in contemporary Asian society. Organised by period, nation and region, each chapter provides: ·a historical overview of the culture; ·an outline of theatre history; ·a survey of significant playwrights, actors, directors, companies, plays and productions. With contributions from an international team of scholars, this authoritative introduction will uniquely equip students and scholars with a broad understanding of the modern theatre histories of Asia.

Women Performers in Bengal and Bangladesh

Women Performers in Bengal and Bangladesh PDF Author: Manujendra Kundu
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192699369
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Covering nearly 225 years, this volume tries to capture a broad spectrum of the situation of women performers from Gerasim Lebedeff's time (1795), who are considered to be the first performers in modern Bengali theatre, to today's time. The moot question is whether the role of women as performers evolved down the centuries. Whether this question will lead us to their subjugation to their male counterparts, producers, and directors has been explored here to give readers an understanding of when, where, by whom the politics began, and, by tracing the footprints, we have tried to understand if the politics has changed, or remains unchanged, or metamorphosed with regard to the woman's question in the performance discourse. We have explored, in this regard, how her body, mind, and sexuality interacted with and negotiated the phallocentric hierarchy. The essays included are on (i) Baiji/Tawaif culture in eastern and western Bengal; (ii) prostitute/'fallen' women/ patita, beshya performers; (iii) IPTA and the Naxalbari movement; (iv) group and commercial/professional theatre of Kolkata; (v) women's position in the theatre of Bangladesh; (vi) Cabaret (with an interview with Miss Shefali) (vii) Jatra; (viii) Baul tradition. (ix) Besides, there are chapters on English, Anglo-Indian, Jew, Nachni performers and the illustrious dancer Amala Shankar, and film-music-dance in general.

Theatres of Independence

Theatres of Independence PDF Author: Aparna Bhargava Dharwadker
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 158729642X
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 505

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Book Description
Theatres of Independence is the first comprehensive study of drama, theatre, and urban performance in post-independence India. Combining theatre history with theoretical analysis and literary interpretation, Aparna Dharwadker examines the unprecedented conditions for writing and performance that the experience of new nationhood created in a dozen major Indian languages and offers detailed discussions of the major plays, playwrights, directors, dramatic genres, and theories of drama that have made the contemporary Indian stage a vital part of postcolonial and world theatre.The first part of Dharwadker's study deals with the new dramatic canon that emerged after 1950 and the variety of ways in which plays are written, produced, translated, circulated, and received in a multi-lingual national culture. The second part traces the formation of significant postcolonial dramatic genres from their origins in myth, history, folk narrative, sociopolitical experience, and the intertextual connections between Indian, European, British, and American drama. The book's ten appendixes collect extensive documentation of the work of leading playwrights and directors, as well as a record of the contemporary multilingual performance histories of major Indian, Western, and non-Western plays from all periods and genres. Treating drama and theatre as strategically interrelated activities, the study makes post-independence Indian theatre visible as a multifaceted critical subject to scholars of modern drama, comparative theatre, theatre history, and the new national and postcolonial literatures.