Veena Naregal Sudipto Veena Naregal Sudipto 2 Introduction 7 Provincial elites, urban intellectuals, and a new Marathi theatre VEENA NAREGAL Guest Editor Hanne M.de Bruin 24 Editor From colonial jatra to native theatre: Hybrid aesthetics of Anjum Katyal nineteenth century Bengali theatre Editorial Consultant SUDIPTO CHATTERJEE Samik Bandyopadhyay Assistants Sudeshna Banerjee 33 Sunandini Banerjee Design Use of Adversity: Embodiments of culture and crisis Sunandini Banerjee in the Prahlada nataka of Orissa Cover design using a photograph JOHN EMIGH by John Emigh. 56 The history of the rural natakam or ‘drama’ in North Tamilnadu HANNE M. DE BRUIN 75 Persistence of conventions: ‘company drama’ and the Tamil cinema S. THEODORE BA S KARAN Published by Naveen Kishore 89 for The Seagull Foundation for the Arts, Interview with P. K. Bhupathi 26 Circus Avenue, Calcutta 700017 P. RAJAGOPAL Printed at Laurens & Co. 9 Crooked Lane, Calcutta 700 069 S T Q SEAGULL THeatRE QUARTERLY Issue 31 Sept 2001 14 V e e n a Provincial elites, urban intellectuals, and a new Marathi theatre A major problem bedevilling the task of art and cultural historians of non-Western societies is the imperative to theorize about the transition between pre-colonial expressive and performative forms and Part of the difficulty is to distinguish the status of pre- modern forms from their representation in colonial, the guises these forms assumed through their re-invention during the colonial period. Part of the difficulty is to distinguish the status of pre-modern forms from their representation in colonial, nationalist, and one might add, post-modern discourse. The colonial transformation on the subcontinent involved a shift from a literate and political regime, shaped around a scribal culture and oral transmission, to a world of literate politics that presumed the use of print.1 The introduction of print and English transformed the South Asian cultural universe by redefining performative arenas, forms, and hierarchies. The cultural sphere mirrored these Veena Naregal has written on the political and economic shifts through the new cultural and political history of norms, agents, audiences, and patrons that now Western India (Language Politics, structured performance, cultural participation, and Elites and the Public Sphere, New innovation. The dominant performative genres in Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001). the new Marathi theatre that emerged in the 1840s H er current work is on are a rich vein through which to explore the shift contemporary media networks from a cultural order that reproduced itself mainly in Mumbai and the Samyukta through oral transmission to one where modes Maharashtra Movement. At associated with print were taken to be the norm. In a present she is teaching Asian context where a hypothetically laicized vernacular Media and Cultural Studies at the culture remained one in which its claims to a generally inclusive literate audience could not be borne out, theatrical forms and other public- performative arenas were bound to enjoy a heightened significance. And yet, despite the small size of colonial reading audiences, print exerted a peculiar pressure upon artistic innovation and on the range and status of performative forms that 16 16 emerged. I will use this normative shift from orality to the primacy of print culture as a point of departure from which to analyse the early forms of the Marathi theatre. This paper will explore the varieties of Marathi theatrical practice that emerged between 1840 and 1880 in the period prior to the advent of the sangeet natak and the figure of Annasaheb Kirloskar.2 These were the pauranik khel, ‘farce’ and the ‘bookish’ natak. The emergence of these forms will initially be discussed, against a brief account of the patronage and performative forms in the late pre-colonial period, and then, in relation to the avenues of patronage to the natakmandalis—of which Vishnudas Bhave’s Sanglikar Natakmandali was the first—within the new arrangements ordained by colonial society. The concluding section of the paper will elaborate on the enterprise and innovation shown by some successful touring companies after Bhave, such as the Ichalkaranjikar Natakmandali, Balwant Marathe’s Nutan Sanglikar Natakmandali, and the Altekar Natakmandali. Some interesting material about the composition and internal organization of these troupes, and their methods of managing finances and resolving conflicts will also be discussed. This period between the performance of Vishnudas Bhave’s Sitaswayamvar in 1843 and Annasaheb Kirloskar’s first staging of Sangeet Shakuntal in 1880 encapsulates the challenges in moulding a theatrical and performative practice that could at once claim to be ‘cultivated’ and popular and combine ‘high’ aesthetic merit with commercial viability. Resulting in near legendary status for a series of star performers who came after Annasaheb Kirloskar, the great commercial success of the sangeet natak form enabled the Kirloskar troupe to be the first Marathi theatrical company to build its own playhouse, the Kirloskar Sangeet Sabhagriha, which opened in Pune on 21 August 1909.3 Although narratives used by Bhave and Annasaheb Kirloskar both derived from the traditional corpus of the Hindu epics and shared common elements, major differences separate the two moments. Practitioners of the sangeet natak and later literary historians were wont to see the former as a ‘crude’, less ‘refined’ and slovenly form, compared to the ‘better-crafted’ and apparently ‘more modern’ sangeet natak. This shift in taste and critical opinion was indicative of the increasing ideological influence that the new intelligentsia wielded by the last quarter of the nineteenth century. In fact, its members’ ability to mould the criteria of dramatic and literary taste through critical periodicals and newspapers helped establish their dominance over the sphere of ‘high’ culture, and this contributed significantly to their ascendancy within the public sphere. While not denying this, I propose that the success of the sangeet natak was also indicative of deeper cultural and political shifts. By the 1880s, after half a century or so of colonial rule, processes of Weberian disenchantment had clearly redefined the nature of religious experience. Under these circumstances, the appeal of forms dramatizing mythic interludes using traditionalist techniques was bound to lose some of its lustre. Instead, the sangeet natak with its offerings based on well-known stories, often from Sanskrit drama, combining heroic characters, themes of romantic love with an endless scope for the display of musical talent was more likely to fulfil the urgent need for forms that would amalgamate aspirations to ‘high’ taste, entertainment, and popular sentiment. The reach of the new literacy was hardly wide enough to sustain a radically novel prose drama; not surprisingly, the turning to music was such a vital element of theatrical and artistic innovation in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Before elaborating on the early efforts to forge a new theatrical Marathi practice, a brief description of the important performative genres in the pre-colonial period would be in order. PRE -COLONIAL PERFORMATIVE GENRES Marathi textuality, in the form of royal epigraphs and inscriptions and compositions of the mahanubhav and varkari sects, emerged during the last decades of the thirteenth century.4 The most important performative forms in the cultural life of the Deccan have been the lavani-tamasha,5 kirtan, and the later povadas6 and bakhars.7 The 17 17 The birth of a new theatre practice in former have had a longer history of at least three centuries, during which they have undergone complex shifts in their social Marathi is attributed position and artistic status. Both the lavani and kirtan forms claim an ancestry that goes back to the popular traditions of to Vishnudas Bhave, worship of the varkari sect and the first great flourishing of vernacular textualized forms in the devotional verse of the who was in the Marathi bhakti poets between the thirteenth and seventeenth employ of the ruler centuries. Although the two genres have evolved distinct features and thematic emphases, and despite the disrepute of the Sangli State, attached to the lavani form for its depiction of erotic and bawdy themes, these forms share an overlapping history in terms of C h i n t a m a n r a o influences, composers, artists and narrative repertoires. The lavani and kirtan form have shown remarkable resilience Appasaheb. Starting in adapting to changing performative circumstances and structures of patronage in the last three centuries. Emerging with Sitaswayamwar, largely as subaltern dissenting idioms, they were at least partially ‘classicized’ through patronage from wealthy and i n 1 8 4 3 , B h ave politically influential families in the Peshwa period. Indeed, the history of these forms bears witness to the complex changes c o m p o s e d a n d that this region has witnessed, especially the changing strategies of regional political elites in their search for legitimization through patronage of popular devotional and performative forms. The permeability of the kirtan to cultural and political shifts is borne out in its ‘classicization’ during the Peshwa period, when kirtankars began using compositions of elite panditkavis like Vamanpandit and Moropant, whose Marathi verses abounded in the use of a ‘high’ Sanskritized idiom. Similarly, until the Peshwa period, the lavani form had been mainly performed by non-elite kolhatti and mahar communities, but was now taken up by well-known brahmin shahir poets like Ramjoshi and Anantphandi, and gained widespread patronage at the courts of ruling elites. Thus, unlike the situation with the adjacent languages like Kannada and Telugu, a courtly tradition of Marathi poetry was markedly visible only after the rise of Peshwa power, many years after Marathi was first used for devotional compositions. There were clear signs of an expansion of the literary realm during the Peshwa period, seen in both the diversity of literary styles and in the increased patronage shown by the political and economic elite to practitioners of various performative idioms.