ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the first use of the influence of Brechtian aesthetics in India by reading the politics of Brechtian theatre in India against the Indian carnivalesque tradition. Drawing upon insights from the theatre group Hindustani Theatre, the first professional theatre troupe in India, and its 1963 production of Sufaid Kundali (The Caucasian Chalk Circle), the first example of Brecht’s plays in the Hindi belt, I argue that since its first staging in the Hindi belt, Brechtian theatre is an assertion of what Foucault calls “similarity.” I examine a subversive variant of Indian proscenium theatre before the introduction of Brechtian theatre in India and demonstrate how this variant remained crucial to shaping India’s definition of Brechtian theatre. This means that the emergence of Brechtian theatre cannot be credited solely to the dissemination of Brechtian aesthetics in India but it also recognises India’s own political and subversive theatrical traditions.
