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TheatreinColonialIndia:PlayHouseofPower.Editedby LataSingh.NewDelhi:OxfordUniversityPress,2009.Pp. viii+354.33.24Hb.Performingwomen,Performing womanhood:Theatre,PoliticsandDissentinNorthIndia. ByNandiBhatia.NewDelhi:OxfordUniversityPress,2010. Pp.xxviii+158.26.13Hb.

BrahmaPrakash
TheatreResearchInternational/Volume37/Issue01/March2012,pp8890 DOI:10.1017/S0307883311000629,Publishedonline:26January2012

Linktothisarticle:http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0307883311000629 Howtocitethisarticle: BrahmaPrakash(2012).ReviewofLataSingh'TheatreinColonialIndia:PlayHouseofPower' TheatreResearchInternational,37,pp8890doi:10.1017/S0307883311000629 RequestPermissions:Clickhere

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what practitioners say they are doing and what is delivered. Thus in the immediate post-independence era, for instance, French existentialism provided a dramaturgy used to proclaim a proud nationalism, just as French drama, popular in nineteenth-century colonial Batavia, asserted a way of being something other than Dutch. Meticulously researched and building on the work of others who have carved out signicant parts of the eld (Cohen, Hatley, Teeuw), the book offers fascinating insights into each historical period. Because colonization commenced under the banner of the Dutch United East India Company (VOC) before the Netherlands became a nation, even the name chosen for their trading post, Batavia, invoked their own quasi-mythic past of resistance prior to nationhood, thus constituting the rst ghosting. In his examination of postcolonial theatre, Winet consistently demonstrates how this pattern of ghosting continued into Sukarnos era, Suhartos New Order, and the present period of reformasi. In spite of the books many strengths, there are times when the theoretical framework is greatly truncated, making it difcult to fully assimilate, as is the case in the introduction when the phenomenology of identity is explored via Deleuze and Guattari, Fanon, Levinas and Foucault, all in a scant few pages. This is a minor quibble, however, in an otherwise successful work, and may well have been due to the uniform page-length required for titles in this series. Indonesian Postcolonial Theatre is an important addition to the eld of Asian performance, and is among the few works to argue for and map out an original analytical framework, making the book accessible to the reader unfamiliar with contemporary Indonesian theatre.
Theatre Research International, 37.1 doi:10.1017/S0307883311000629

Theatre in Colonial India: Play-House of Power. Edited by Lata Singh. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009. Pp. viii + 354. 33.24 Hb. Performing women, Performing womanhood: Theatre, Politics and Dissent in North India. By Nandi Bhatia. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. xxviii + 158. 26.13 Hb. Reviewed by Brahma Prakash, Royal Holloway, University of London, brahma.prakash.2009@live.rhul.ac.uk These two works on Indian theatre appear at a time when countercultural discourse is itself becoming canonical hegemonic in its approach, and alienating in its language. For instance, the middle-class feminist discourses on actresses ignored not only the question of caste and labour but also that of class other than itself. Most of these discourses were also presented in binary terms: colonizerscolonized, elitesubaltern, urbanrural, moderntraditional, classicalfolk; their interplays were simply overlooked. Lata Singhs proposition to go beyond middle-class respectability and recognize actress as an artist and worker is a radical intervention in Indian theatre scholarship (p. 270). The book includes thirteen brilliant articles from six Indian states, encapsulating text, archive, ethnography and performance. Its potential rests in the diverse range it takes (from Tamil Kattaikkuttu girls to English actresses on the Indian stage), the questions it addresses (gender, caste, class, ethnicity, language), the methodologies it suggests (writing

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theatre history/criticisms through musical codes to drama notices), the performers it includes (Nautankis Gulab Bai to IPTAs Sheila Bhatia) and the possibilities it shows for the future discourses (interplays of marginal identities). Bhirdikar analyses musical code to understand social code (public taste) in Marathi theatre. Bandopadhyay suggests an innovative way to write theatre history through the structure of performance concert, stage-setting, and act. Mangai and Arasu construct the history of Tamil theatre through drama notices. They argue that drama notices do not only tell the story of theatre but also tell us about the attitude of society towards the participation of dalits and about women as audiences (p. 116). Through her engagement with Kattaikkuttu performers, de Bruin argues that the image of middle-class women, constructed during the colonial period, continues to make its impact on the position of rural women performers even today. Rege extends this debate to Lavani and Powada performance in Maharashtra. Unlike other scholars in this book, she gives a different dimension to the actress stories. While tracing the history of lavani, a lower-caste performance, she explains how lavani, as an expression of the everyday desire of common people (including sexual), became reduced to a performance satiating male desire in the upper-caste court (p. 135). One of the most relevant entries in this volume is an article from Manipur, the state which has remained besieged by the Indian state with draconian laws like the Armed Forces Special Power Acts (AFPSA). Imokanta Singh discusses two types of cultural colonization upper-caste Hindu colonization in which Sanskrit and Bangala became the hegemonic language and Bengali bhadraloks (upper-caste elites) tried to impose patriarchy on Manipuri theatre, and the British colonization (p. 231). Another interesting entry is Dutts essay on the English actress, in which she examines the way English actresses became part of the Oriental landscape (p. 318). If Play-House of Power lays down a broader framework, then Performing Women, Performing Womanhood is as examination of women performers from North India. The latter draws from the former in terms of material and framework. Extending the debate to Indian popular cinema, Performing Women argues that if the discourse of female actresses in India is that of middle-class ideal women, then it is also a discourse of those women who, from the borderline of dominant theatrical activity, not only contested middle-class codes but also showed a radical vision for gender and theatre (p. xix). Divided into ve chapters, chapter 1 discusses the image of middle-class women in literature and cinema. Premchands The Actress, and two Hindi movies Teesri Kasam (1966) and Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hun (2003) present an ambivalent image of the actress in which morality stands in negotiation with the material context of life. Chapter 2 examines the works of two middle-class women playwrights Rasheed Jahan and Ismat Chugtai as argumentative women who not only confronted domesticity but also challenged religious communalism and colonialism through their plays. Chapter 3 explores the tragedy and trauma of, and recuperation from, partition through the personnel narratives and performances of two women theatre activists, Zohra Segal and Sheila Bhatia. The chapter invokes memory, displacement, nationalism, religiosity and violence against women and their connection to theatre and performance. Finally, the last two chapters deal with the works of two contemporary women directors, Kusum Kumar and Tripurari Sharma.

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Despite the success of both these books, some questions and concerns remain. In most of the chapters, the scholarship has failed to see the interplays and interrelationships between gender and caste, which is the central factor for the subordination of the [Indian] upper caste [middle-class] women (Uma Chakarvarti, Conceptualising Brahmanical Patriarchy in Early India: Gender, Caste, Class and State, Economic and Political Weekly, 28 (April 1993), pp. 579585, here p. 579) because the representation of Indian middleclass women is less about the representation of women or womanhood and more about that of upper-caste values through women. Any discourse on gender in India simply cannot ignore the interplays of caste and class. Caste should not become a focus only in relation to lower-caste performances; rather caste needs to be seen as a constitutive element of gender. The historiocization of actresses questions, along with caste and labour, may give a completely different picture to the present discourse, as it appears in Reges essay. Perhaps it is for this reason that in both these books there is an uncritical appreciation of court culture. Recent scholarly research shows that colonialism (in India) did not destroy all existing traditional hierarchal relationship of caste, class and gender; rather it saw feudalism and aristocracy as its allies. Another criticism alludes to the importance of text. Text still constitutes the major source of both these books. The authors should have also engaged more with artistic and aesthetic aspects, and the inclusion of more illustrations would enhance these publications. In spite of these minor criticisms and limitations, both these books make a signicant contribution to Indian theatre and performance and are also important in terms of interdisciplinary research.

Theatre Research International, 37.1 doi:10.1017/S0307883311000630

Eurasian Theatre: Drama and Performance between East and West from Classical Antiquity to the Present. By Nicola Savarese. Holstebro, Malta and Wroclaw: Icarus Publishing Enterprise, 2010. Pp. 640. 27 Hb. Reviewed by Christel Weiler, Freie Universit t Berlin, christel.weiler@fu-berlin.de a This book was published for the rst time in 1992 in Italian, and in 2010 Icarus Publishing Enterprise published this deservedly revised and extended English edition that makes the text accessible to broader audiences academic and beyond. Far from being outdated, Nicola Savareses historical research is still an urgent text today. At a time when culturally constructed borders are increasingly dissolved, it is of paramount importance to trace back the historical dimensions of the manifold encounters between Eastern and Western performance and theatre practices. Savarese presents himself as a somewhat old-fashioned scholarly storyteller a disguise that is appropriate to his subject: the history of exchanges, interweaving, diffusion of theatrical knowledge and techniques. In six chapters he deliberately guides the reader through consolidated ndings and speculative terrain at the same time. What we are confronted with are encounters between peoples and cultures. Savareses historical account starts with antiquity and ends in the twentieth century with a chapter about Eugenio Barbas anthropological studies and experiments.

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