Badal Sircar’s Third Theatre: The Theatre of Roots

Abstract

The theatre nurtured by Badal Sircar was the synthesis of Indian Indigenous theatre and westernized realistic city theatre. His theatre is known as the Third Theatre- a term with which he is most closely identified. The present paper is an attempt to explore the contribution of Badal Sircar to Indian Theatre practices and theory with special emphasis on various features of The Third Theatre.

When I try to talk about the language of theatre, the first question that I have to face is- who am i? That includes a series of questions- where do I come from? Where do I belong in the complex social structure of this complex world? What are my times? What is my language? What is my theatre? What is the language of my theatre? (72 Sircar)

Badal Sircar opens his long article “The Changing Language of Theatre” with the above quoted lines. Although, he is specifically talking about his own experiences in theatre, but the questions he poses reflect the general dilemma of the Indian playwrights, directors and actors after independence. After Independence, the need for a theatre that addresses the issues of a newly born nation was echoing in Indian literary circles. The air was impregnated with the questions like whether to stick to the colonial model of theatre; or to revisit pre colonial theatrical traditions to reclaim and reinforce the lost identity of native culture and art. The influence of IPTA and establishment of NSD further intensified the search for theatre that aims at projecting both Indianness and modernity not only in its thematic concerns but in form as well. A movement was initiated towards a return to the “Theatre of Roots” that draws heavily from our folk theatrical conventions. This period witnessed intense experimentation in Indian drama which was on one hand being engaged in exploration of folk forms but was also influenced from avant garde postmodern western dramatists. The theatre personalities like Rattan Thiyam, K.N. Panikkar, Habib Tanveer and Badal Sircar went away from the western tradition of realistic theatre and embraced the rich theatrical heritage of their own country.