ABSTRACT
This chapter continues the discussion on the influence of Brechtian aesthetics and its disparate uses in India by analysing the theatre of Habib Tanvir, a playwright and director from India. With my analysis of the 1978 performance of Shajapur ki Shantibai (The Good Person of Szechwan), I demonstrate how Tanvir ultimately used Brechtian aesthetics in India to challenge the nation-state, an act that remained independent of Brechtian theatre’s previous uses in the European context. I argue that the production “regionalised” Brechtian theatre in India and should be read as the culmination of Tanvir’s endeavour to create a “regional” theatre apparatus, which appropriated both Western and mainstream Indian variants of Brechtian theatre.
