Hi, I’m Mike Rugnetta.
This is Crash Course Theater, and as much as we may all adore the violence and raunch
of Roman performance..
it’s time to move on.
Aw, Yorick - you disappointed?
I know it well, you’re a fan of the rope dancing maidens aren’t you?
So bawdy, this one!
The theater of Greece and Rome is only one tradition, and today we’re going to survey
another: Sanskrit theater.
We could devote several episodes to classical Indian theater, but because we have two and
a half millennia of opening nights from around the world to cover in this series, today is
more of a highlights reel—and those highlights include happy endings, rectangular theaters,
and fish bellies.
INTRO We don’t really know when Sanskrit theater
started or how it evolved, but likely it followed a process similar to Greek drama and—spoiler
alert!—the future reemergence of theater in the medieval period.
Basically: People create religious rituals to honor their gods.
Someone gets the bright idea that, instead of just singing praises, it might be cool
to act out some devotion.
And before you know it, you have characters and plots and sometimes a chorus of frogs.
Thee-ah-TAH!
Sanskrit literature starts around 1500 BCE, and like Greek literature, it was originally
an oral tradition.
Its great works—the Mahabharata and the Ramayana—weren’t written down until much,
much later.
The Mahabharata is an epic tale of a battle between two groups of cousins.
The Ramayana is a more intimate family narrative … that also involves a monkey king.
Yeah.
It’s as dope as it sounds.
Most Sanskrit dramas are based on excerpts from these epics.
There’s no solid date for the first Sanskrit dramas, either, though we do have a bunch
of surviving plays from the first century CE, suggesting this tradition had already
been around for a while.
The golden age for Sanskrit drama comes a little bit later, around the 4th and 5th centuries,
during the Gupta Dynasty.
Which was a good time if you were into science, math, or ... theater.
That’s us!
All told, about two-dozen dramas survive; we’re going to look at one later in this
episode.
The plays were typically written in a mix of Sanskrit, the fancy literary dialect, and
Prakrit, the more common dialect.
If the Greeks have taught us anything, it’s that if you want to have a great age of drama,
you need someone to come along and lecture you on how to do it right.
In Sanskrit theater, instead of Plato and Aristotle, we have Bharata Muni.
Speaking historically, he may not actually have been a real person, but more of a literary
construct like Homer, except he was also semi-divine.
Sorry, Homer.
We still think you’re fabulous.
Sometime in the common era, Bharata Muni wrote the Natyasastra, which is basically an all-purpose
guide to theater: How to write it, how to stage it, how to watch it, all the different
ways an actor can move her nose.
And much more.
So much more.
It’s like Aristotle’s Poetics if, after writing about tragedy, Aristotle decided to
write about… everything else.
Oh and the Natyasastra, is also structured as a 6000 verse poem.
Obviously we’re not going to have time to summarize all of the Natyasastra–turns out
there are LOTS of nose movements; I’m partial to this one [C/U ON SOME NOSE MOVES] –but
we will look at the philosophies that underlie the composition of plays.
We’ll also look at how plays should be performed, at least according to Bharata Muni.
But first, let’s check out the Natyasatra’s theory of the origins of drama.
Theater, it says, was created by Brahma, because Brahma’s job is creating stuff.
See CC World Mythology, with this handsome half bird sir - don’t worry Thoth and I
still hang out on the weekends.
Brahma and some other gods are worried that the scriptures are just too literary, so he
comes up with drama as a religious teaching tool.
Brahma teaches it to the god Bharata, who teaches it to his 100 sons.
They prepare a play about that awesome time the god Indra defeated some demons.
The gods in the audience love the play, the demons not so much.
They start wilding out, and Indra has to defeat them—again!
The demons are still pretty upset, but they are reassured that some plays will make fun
of the gods, so they agree to stop their attack.
Man, and you thought your preview audiences were tough!
YEESH!
After that exciting origin story, the Natyasastra introduces the idea of rasas.
Greek and Roman plays were divided by genre—comedy, tragedy, satyr plays.
Sanskrit theater is different.
Instead of genre, plays are defined by the kinds of moods they evoke.
These moods are called rasas.
There are initially eight of them: erotic, comic, pathetic, furious, heroic, terrible,
odious, and marvelous.
Eventually a ninth rasa, is added: peace!
A very nice mood to evoke!
Not terrible or odious in the least.
How do you evoke these rasas, you might ask?
A playwright does it by drawing on eight major human emotions, which are called bhavas.
There are eight of those: pleasure, mirth, sorrow, wrath, vigor, fear, disgust, and wonder.
You put the bhavas together in the right combination and you evoke the appropriate rasa.
Hold the odious phone, though: not only are there nine rasa-moods and eight bhava-emotions,
there are also ten categories of play, somewhat based on length, because a Sanskrit drama
can have between one and ten acts.
These categories don’t have precise English translations, but most surviving plays belong
to two main categories: nataka plays and prakarana plays.
Nataka plays are five to ten acts long.
They usually borrow stories from the classic Sanskrit epics and deal with gods and heroes
and demons.
These plays are a little like tragedies, except, like most Sanskrit plays, they end happily.
This helps the audience live in harmony with the universe - which I mean hey, not a terrible
aim for the arts, right?
Prakarana plays are also five to ten acts long.These are closer in spirit to Roman comedies
in that they often have urban settings and deal with everyday human characters.
Other kinds include dima plays, which have 16 heroes, and anka, one-act plays in which
women lament.
Very exciting things happen in these plays—like kidnappings and battles and berserk elephants—but
those things mostly happen offstage.
Onstage, we get messengers’ reports and dialogue about how people are dealing with
invading monkey forces, but not usually the monkey forces themselves.
Which, I mean, makes sense.
What director wants to manage the blocking for an army of monkeys?
Besides what types of plays there are, the Natyasastra has a lot of ideas about how plays
should be staged.
Like Greek and Roman theater, Sanskrit theatre was often staged in conjunction with religious
festivals and preceded by elaborate religious rituals.
But UNLIKE Greek and Roman theater, players weren’t exclusively men: troupes were male,
female, and mixed gender.
Plays were also sometimes commissioned as court performances.
Bharata Muni says although the best spectators are noble, theater is for all classes.
Members of the four castes—priests, warriors, merchants, and peasants—all seem to have
gone to the theater, though they didn’t get to sit together.
No classical Sanskrit theaters survive, and sadly we know nothing about their concession
snacks.
But Bharata Muni does have some pointers on architecture.
Theaters could be rectangular, square, or triangular and small, medium, or large.
The medium-sized rectangle was the most popular design.
And in case you’re thinking, hey isn’t bigger better, - turns out you’re more right
than you think, because large rectangles are reserved for the gods.
Half of the theater was for the audience, the other half was for the stage and the backstage.
There were also four color-coded pillars, and the whole thing was meant to symbolize
the entire universe.
No pressure.
If you think that seems precise, wait until you hear about the acting.
Acting in the classical Indian theater is incredibly specific and highly stylized.
The way a performer stands and blinks and crooks a finger and flares her nostrils—all
of that is conveying vital information about her character and the circumstances of the
play.
The Natyasastra lists six ways you can move your nose, nine ways you can move your neck.
There are seven ways you can move your eyebrows, each with its own distinct meaning – from
lowering “in envy, disgust and smelling” to contracted in “manifestation of affection”.
And don’t even get Bharata Muni started on the eyes.
Or the fingers.
Or the feet.
That said, it’s communicating through emotion that matters most.
Rhythm and music, costume and make-up, are also crucially important.
Props, too.
But not scenery.
Sanskrit drama doesn’t do scenery.
To get a feel of how these plays...uh, played out, let’s take a look at one of the most
beloved Sankrit dramas, Kalidasa’s “The Recognition of Sakuntala.”
No solid date for this one, but best guess: early in the common era.
Thoughtbubble, You Better Recognize: The play begins with a prayer to Shiva, the
destroyer.
But in a pretty meta gesture a director stops the hymn so that he can rehearse with one
of his actresses.
She sings a song, and the play begins.
In the first act, King Dushyanta is out hunting deer near a bunch of hermitages when he decides
to hide behind a tree, perving on some beautiful hermit maidens—especially Sakuntala.
The king falls in love, but ooohhh dip, she’s in the wrong caste!
The king mopes because he’s soooooo in love with the hermit girl and is trying to find
an excuse to see her.
But then!
Two youths come and ask him to protect the hermitage.
Score!
Before long, the king and Sakuntala confess their love.
By the next act, their wedding has taken place and also presumably sex.
Then the king has to leave to do king stuff.
Daydreaming, Sakuntala accidentally offends the touchy poet Durvasa.
So he curses her, telling her that King Dushyanta will forget all about her until she presents
him with a token, like the ring he conveniently left.
Sakuntala, who is pregnant, brings the king his kingly ring, to bring to mind their forbidden
fling.
But alas!
The king fails to recognize her.
And she’s like, “But wait, I have this ring.” which ... fell into the Ganges.
Oops!
Sakuntala leaves the palace dejected, and after a long while a fisherman finds what
is clearly a KINGLY RING in the belly of a fish!
When the king sees it, he remembers Sakuntala, but is busy fighting demons.
After the king defeats them, Indra rewards him with a ride through the heavens.
In the final act of the play, Act VII, the chariot lets the king off at a hermitage.
And even after years, he recognizes Sakuntala … and his son!
Thanks Thoughtbubble.
Reunited and it feels so good!
Yay!
A happy ending!
Harmony with the universe achieved!
As you can see, a nataka is very different from its Greco-Roman counterparts.
Seven acts, a lots of events, a multiyear span, a ton of locations, and a distinct mix
of tragedy and comedy and prayer and sex and hermits.
Sorta has it all.
And then some!
There was even a rampaging elephant.
Somehow it all comes together to help the audience achieve that harmony with the universe.
Nice work, Kalidasa.
Sanskrit drama thrived for hundreds of years.
But in the next episode we’re going to go back to Rome to talk about the decline of
drama.
There’s gonna be a whole mess of trouble from the Goths and the Visigoths, and then–
for a bunch of centuries – no Western theater at all.
Unless you count mimes.
Turns out the Dark Ages means dark nights for theater, too!
Get it, Yorick?
Because a dark night is a night when there isn’t a performance and a theater
and it’s closed…
oof, tough customer, this guy…
Okay!
Until next time… curtain!