ABSTRACT
Rabindranath’s theatrical engagements at the asram-school had a two-fold purpose: on the one hand, serious explorations into dramaturgical and/or theatrical innovations were undertaken; on the other, these were loaded with ideological underpinnings that informed his ideas of a ‘modern’ Indian theatre, in a definitive rejection of the colonial mimicry then practised on the Bengali public stage. Rabindranath’s relocation to Santiniketan, with the founding of the asram-school there in 1901, helped to consolidate his vision of – among other things – an alternative mode of theatre, which relied more on indigenous traditions and less on Western borrowings. The shift to Santiniketan allowed a smooth transition in Rabindranath’s theatrical experiments from Western borrowings towards a more Bengali/Indian identity. In fact, his plays in performance came to acquire a uniqueness of their own, marked by his signature style of production, with the asram residents his as collaborators.
