Project Nationalism and Theatre in Contemporary India

Abstract The nation as performed by the state has found either endorsement or criticism on the stage in postindependence India. The decolonization drive, undertaken during the 1950s, aimed at identifying performance forms that would define what ‘national theatre’ would be for a free India and thus help reclaim the ‘Indian’ cultural ethos. Nation in contemporary Indian theatre is as much a thematic trope as a question of form – but both critical of the previous postcolonial-nationalist tendency to institutionalize through theatre an Indian culture in sync with the state narrative of nationhood. Twenty-first century theatre in India is largely experimental, moving far beyond the thematization of issues to their presentation in forms that are ‘inter-artistic exchange’ (Lehmann) and partake of performance-making protocols from domestic as well as global theatre practice. The present study discusses two theatrical productions – The Antigone Project (2003-4), directed by Anuradha Kapur and Ein Lall, and Work in Progress: A Nationalism Project (2018), directed by scenographer Deepan Sivaraman. The former is the artist’s reaction to the 2002 post-Godhra riot (called ‘pogrom’ by many); the latter critiques the distortion of the idea of modern India, prompting readings from the country’s Constitution. Although centered on these two productions, the essay quickly meanders through a couple more contemporary performances in the second section to demonstrate through the diversity of forms the shift in the relationship between politics and theatre, especially when it comes to the performance of nationalism.