Abstract:

The influence of jatra on Tagore's theatre can hardly be denied. Critics often engage un fierce argument regarding the tranlsation of his play texts into performance text. Tagore's expetiementation with theatre was not merely confined in terms of form and content. It was equally a politicisation of art where the search for an indigenous model is clearly discernible going beyond the nineteenth century Western  realistic theatre. The whole idea of theatre is imbued with colonial inflections and the rise of the culture of the theatre marginalised a number of indigenous  folk performances like jatra,  kirtan, pancharas and many others. One of the strategies to undermine the Euroecentic model was to fall back upon jatra with which he was familair since his childhood. He brought the constituent elements of jatra into his  theatre to discard the Euroecentic model of the material productions and reception of his plays.