A REFLECTION ON EVOLUTION AND ESSENCE OF THEATER

MOHD ISHAQ SHAH

Art is not a truth, but it is a lie that makes us realise the truth)- Bocassio

The International Theatre Institute ( ITI) is delighted to announce the World Theatre Day 2024 Celebration, set to take place from 27 to 29 March 2024 in Langfang, China. Since its inception on 27 March 1962, World Theatre Day has stood as the fl agship event of ITI, uniting theatre enthusiasts worldwide in celebration of the intrinsic value of the theatrical art. This year, ITI is privileged to have Jon Fosse, the Norwegian playwright and novelist, and last year ´ s Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature, crafting the Message for World Theatre Day 2024. The event is jointly organized by the International Theatre Institute ( ITI) and the Chinese Theatre Association ( CTA), hosted by the “Langfang Silk Road International Arts Center”, with the support of the Langfang Municipality. The Celebration will include a Conference, a Gala Night, workshops, and more, attracting participation from local and international theatre professionals and public.

Theaters are an age old medium of communication before the emergence of modern communication system as we see in the present times in the form of print and electronic media. And in today's world the social media platforms that serve at a large scale to provide day to day updates and entertainment as well. But the essence of theaters doesn't seem to have lost its concurrence. Even in the current age of fast communication people visit theaters to watch plays, reality shows and other programs. Theaters would serve as a source of knowledge and entertainment. They would serve the didactic purpose to impart moral, social and ethical knowledge and inculcate sense of duty among them. Besides, they would serve as the homeopathic centers as in Greek doctors would suggest the depressed people to visit theaters for mental relaxation.

It was Aristotle who coined the term Catharsis which means purifi cation or purgation of souls. It implies that people feel relaxed while watching a tragic hero suffering on part of the villainous type of people and it would rouse emotions in them hence working as a catharsis which in idiomatic way means ‘ Like cares Like'

American playwright Eugene O'neill once said, “Theatre is a way of seeing life more honestly” and the medium has indeed been one of the greatest of all art forms especially in India and its college circuit where despite the popularity of multiplexes, movie theatres and other avenues of entertainment, theatre continues to thrive, through dramas, street plays and some of the best actors we see on the silver screen today are those who have wet their feet at the altar of theatre before graduating to fi lms. Did you know the fi rst plays took place in the Theatre of Dionysus, situated in the Acropolis in Athens during the beginning of the 5th century and from there, the theatres became so popular that they spread all over Greece?

A theatrical culture fl ourished in ancient Greece from 700 BC. At its centre was the city- state of Athens, which became a signifi cant cultural, political, and religious place during this period, and theatre was institutionalized there as part of a festival called the Dionysia, which honored the god Dionysus. Tragedy ( late 500 BC), comedy ( 490 BC), and the satyr play were the three dramatic genres to emerge there.

Athens exported the festival to its numerous colonies. Modern Western theatre comes, in large measure, from the theatre of ancient Greece, from which it borrows technical terminology, classifi cation into genres, and many of its themes, stock characters, and plot elements.

The Greeks valued the power of the spoken word, and it was their main method of communication and storytelling. Bahn and Bahn write, "To Greeks the spoken word was a living thing and infi nitely preferable to the dead symbols of a written language." Socrates himself believed that once something has been written down, it lost its ability for change and growth. For these reasons, among many others, oral storytelling fl ourished in Greece.

Greek tragedy as it is presently known was created in Athens around the time of 532 BC, when Thespis was the earliest recorded actor. Being a winner of the fi rst theatrical contest held in Athens, he was the exarchon, or leader, of the dithyrambs performed in and around Attica, especially at the Rural Dionysia. By Thespis' time, the dithyramb had evolved far away from its cult roots. Under the infl uence of heroic epic, Doric choral lyric and the innovations of the poet Arion, it had become a narrative, ballad- like genre. Because of these, Thespis is often called the "Inventor of Tragedy"; however, his importance is disputed, and Thespis is sometimes listed as late as 16th in the chronological order of Greek tragedians; the statesman Solon, for example, is credited with creating poems in which characters speak with their own voice, and spoken performances of Homer's epics by Rhapsodies were popular in festivals prior to 534 BC. Thus, Thespis's true contribution to drama is unclear at best, but his name has been given a longer life, in English, as a common term for performer— i. e., a "thespian."

The dramatic performances were important to the Athenians – this is made clear by the creation of a tragedy competition and festival in the City Dionysia ( or Great Dionysia). This was organized possibly to foster loyalty among the tribes of Attica ( recently created by Cleisthenes). The festival was created roughly around 508 BC. While no drama texts exist from the sixth century BC, the names of three competitors besides Thespis are known: Choerilus, Pratinas, and Phrynichus. Each is credited with different innovations in the fi eld.

Some information is known about Phrynichus. He won his fi rst competition between 511 BC and 508 BC. He produced tragedies on themes and subjects later exploited in the Golden Age such as the Danaids, Phoenician

Women and Alcestis. He was the fi rst poet we know of to use a historical subject – his Fall of Miletus, produced in 493– 2, chronicled the fate of the town of Miletus after it was conquered by the Persians. Herodotus reports that "the Athenians made clear their deep grief for the taking of Miletus in many ways, but especially in this: when Phrynichus wrote a play entitled The Fall of Miletus and produced it, the whole theatre fell to weeping; they fi ned Phrynichus a thousand drachmas for bringing to mind a calamity that affected them so personally and forbade the performance of that play forever." He is also thought to be the fi rst to use female characters ( though not female performers.

Until the Hellenistic period, all tragedies were unique pieces written in honour of Dionysus and played only once; what is primarily extant today are the pieces that were still remembered well enough to have been repeated when the repetition of old tragedies became fashionable ( the accidents of survival, as well as the subjective tastes of the Hellenistic librarians later in Greek history, also played a role in what survived from this period.

So how much fast and swift we become in the field of communication the importance of theaters remains intact. Theaters work( ed) as a source of mass communication as thousands of people watch together a film/ movee/ serial and it in practical manner that seems life like. And if the theatrical art is not realistic in nature , there is no room for duplicity in it.

American playwright Eugene O'neill once said, “Theatre is a way of seeing life more honestly” and the medium has indeed been one of the greatest of all art forms especially in India and its college circuit where despite the popularity of multiplexes, movie theatres and other avenues of entertainment, theatre continues to thrive, through dramas, street plays and some of the best actors we see on the silver screen today are those who have wet their feet at the altar of theatre before graduating to fi lms. Did you know the fi rst plays took place in the Theatre of Dionysus, situated in the Acropolis in Athens during the beginning of the 5th century and from there, the theatres became so popular that they spread all over Greece?

HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE

In 1961, the International Theatre Institute ( ITI) proposed that there should be a day every year to celebrate the importance of theatre. Every year on this day, a certain message is spoken about by a renowned theatre performer.

The fi rst message in 1962 was spoken by Jean Cocteau and ITI has more than 85 centers all over the world. While people usually consider the acting and narration of a story as a play, there are multiple elements like the writer, director, actors, sound producer, costume designer, light and set designer, show caller and more who works tirelessly to successfully execute the entire performance.

World Theatre Day is observed to generate awareness about the importance of theatre in our life as theatre is an art form which comprises live performers, actors, props and more but nowadays, with the advent of movie halls and platforms such as Netfl ix and Amazon Prime, the importance of theatre is not the same as it used to be before. The World Theatre Day started as a movement, but later on it was celebrated to give a fresh direction and meaning to life as theatre has a pertinent role to play in one's life with its healthy effect on a person and the society, since most of the themes have a strong bonding with the real life events.