Between popular and populist: Reading the shift of mobile theatre repertoire

Abstract

ABSTRACT Mobile theatre being the one and only regional fully commercial cultural industry in Assam (India) has significant representation of the Assamese culture. The theatre medium started as a socially responsible cultural forum later translated itself into a commercial enterprise. The 1990s repertoire of Mobile theatre can be seen as popular and it often resonates the regional-political events, while by the 20th century, it took an entirely commercial shift and created a ‘populist model’. This paper aims to understand this shift between these popular (political) and populist, through some of the classic theatre productions like Soraguri Sapori (1983) and Titanic (1996). While the first case study attempts to read the performance against the backdrop of Assam Movement and its subsequent emergence of insurgency in the state. Then, the other tries to develop an understanding on the populist shift against the socio-political and neo-economic changes in 20th century. The paper takes performance analysis approach while studying the productions and also trying address the debates around the idea of ‘Popular’.