ABSTRACT
The structure and organization of the theatre space seem to have been designed precisely to facilitate the kind of idealized transitions and scene progressions that Rabindranath Tagore envisioned. The Natyasastra calls for two secondary spaces, called mattavaranis, to be built on either side of the ranga in accordance with its proportion, the express purpose for which is not given by the text. The pre-modern Sanskrit dramatic tradition was notoriously self-referential. The ever-changing landscape of the pre-modern Sanskrit drama is enacted bodily, with the assistance of a theatrical architecture primed to allow for the imagination to predominate. The stage of the Natyasastra, and of pre-modern Sanskrit theatre, was therefore first and foremost a space of imagination where the poet could lead, and the audience follow, anywhere necessary in order to produce that elusive rasa. How exactly this stage worked, however, and what it might have looked like, requires a certain imagination all its own.
