Description
Book SynopsisIs there a fundamental connection between New York''s Elevator Repair Service''s 9-hour production of The Great Gatsby
and a Kathakali performance?How can we come to appreciate the slowness of Kabuki theatre as much as the pace of the Whatsapp theatre of post-Arab Spring Turkey?Can we go beyond our own culture''s contemporary definition of a ''good play'' and think about the theatre in a deep and pluralistic manner?Drawing on his extensive experience working with theatre artists, students and thinkers across the globe - up to and including an hour-long audience with the Dalai Lama - playwright Abhishek Majumdar considers why we make theatre and how we see it in different parts of the world. His own work has taken him from theatre in Japan to dance companies in the Phillippines, writers in Lebanon and Palestine, theatre groups in Burkina Faso, war-torn areas like Kashmir and North Eastern India, and to China and Tibet, Argentina and Mexico.Via a far-reaching
Trade ReviewMajumdar’s processes sound more like those of a detective or an investigative reporter than a writer observing the world from a garret. For his Kashmir plays, he spent time in police bunkers and the dens of militants. For
Pah-La, he decided he had to go to Lhasa, whatever the cost. * Arifa Akbar, The Guardian *
For 15 years, Abhishek Majumdar has created plays on the fragility of human lives trapped in war and other upheavals. * Indian Express *
Majumdar has behind him a remarkable body of work. His plays sweep a wide arc – they have dealt with generational angst, the dark goings-on at a monastery in 8th century, the trauma of wasted childhood, the politics of food, and the heart of extremist violence. But at their core, they always talk of humanism and its fight against tyranny and greed. * Scroll Magazine *
Abhishek Majumdar’s book is a thrilling read, crossing continents, entering conflicts, and always informed by a questing fusion of art and politics. It is an essential map to how playwriting and play-making might reflect the fractured world we share. * Steve Waters, playwright *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Table of Contents Introduction: Travels and Questions HOME The Quest for Tradition Language of Theatre The Enterprise AWAY Brecht in Kashmir The Kashmir Trilogy The Writing of Pah-la: A Theatre Journey across the Roof of the World Devising in the Tibetan Transit School Reading George C Wolfe’s The Coloured Museum In a New York Subway Hamidur Rehman: A Journey through Bangladesh and Germany. A Journey about a Journey OTHER GEOGRAPHIES Lessons in Pausing: From a theatre in West Africa to a Monastery in the Himalayas On Censorship The Pandemic and the Theatre Bibliography
