ABSTRACT
Amal Allana (b.1947) is a leading contemporary Indian director who is also an auteur, producer, publisher, archivist, educator, and administrator, in addition to being one of the most systematic theatre theorists of her generation. The material reprinted here consists of excerpts from the “Introduction” to The Act of Becoming: Actors Talk (2013), a comprehensive compilation of materials by and about notable Indian actors of the modern period, which theorizes and establishes the centrality of the actor in theatre and performance. Allana uses part of the “Introduction” to address the ways in which her Saudi Muslim heritage, cosmopolitan upbringing, metropolitan outlook, and elite theatre connections affected her sense of personal identity in a postcolonial cultural environment, and complicated her understanding of Indian theatrical modernity and performance traditions. Two other core issues emerge in the discussion: her fascination with the performance of a fluid gender identity on stage, actualized in her gender-bending Hindi productions of Brecht's Mother Courage (1993) and Satish Alekar's Begum Barve (1996); and the importance of including actors as vital collaborators in the theatrical process, epitomized in Nati Binodini (2007), her tribute to the most successful late-nineteenth century actress of the Bengali public theatre.
