Manivendra Kumar and Dr. Ananya Ghoshal
Post-independence canon of Indian theatre is marked by a paradigmatic shift in the reformist agendas of the playwrights. Some playwrights used the method of proscenium plays, while others relied on street or folk theatre to present the socio-cultural turbulences of the time. Habib Tanvir is one reformist playwright of the period whose works can be traced at the intersections of proscenium and rural/folk theatre. Tanvir’s plays are considered milestones in the amalgamation of Indian folk theatre arts and the contemporary perspective of the world. Scholars such as Katheryn Hansen and Javed Mallick have credited Tanvir for bringing together the rural and urban paradigms of theatre arts and propagating a form that was of, for, and by the people. The present paper expands this proposition and studies Tanvir’s Charandas Chor for its distinct representation of rural folk tales in an urban theatrical model. By studying the play closely, the paper argues that Tanvir creates a liminal space that challenges the established notions of reformist drama in India. It also examines the form, content, and meaning of the play through Richard Schechner’s lenses of drama, theatre, and performance. It further explores reformist agendas that subvert the affiliation of social etiquettes through Henri Bergson’s idea of inversion. The paper establishes that Tanvir’s theatre’s uniqueness lies in harnessing the intersectional dimensions of rural and urban theatrical models, which he uses to express plebian issues that are represented through the vibrant performative elements of folk theatre and the urban techniques of theatre.
