The sixties brought new trends to Kannada drama and theatre, the decade being the period when the modernist movement in Kannada literature was at its peak. Karnad's Tughlaq came out in 1964. And then major writer like Lankesh and Kambar, too, engaged in writing plays like Sankranti and Jokumaraswami respectively: important works of literature, not just of theatre.

Although the "Renaissance" greats like Kuvempu, Masti, Bendre, Karanth and Pu. Ti. Na. had all written plays, Kannada amateur theatre had only a few models - the "series" realists Kailasam and Sriranga, and the comparatively lighter Parvathavani and Gundanna. Thus, it was only in the sixties that Kannada theatre and literature came to meet each other at their creative best. The arrival of B V Karnanth was as important as that of Karnad, Lankesh and Kambar.

Karanth's three concurrent productions of Oedipus, Jokumaraswami and Sankranti at the open-air auditorium of Ravindra Kalakshetra, Bangalore, opened new vistas for Kannada theatre in 1972. Later, he directed plays by older-generation writers like Samsa and G B Joshi, and by directing children's plays like Panjara Shale he brought an entirely new dimension to children's theatre.

Karanth also restored the spell of audiovisual splendour to Kannada theatre which, in its amateur phase, had rejected spectacle in performance for words, but had ultimately reduced itself to mere verbiage. Karanth's splendour, however, was completely different from that of professional theatre, marking a quantum leap forward. For him, theatre was a ritual, a festive community celebration, and he made a remarkably functional and creative use of this particular element from old professional theatre.

Music and dance, kept out of Sriranga' productions almost like untouchables, now became integral parts of the theatre idiom forged by Karanth. Fundamental changes took place in the concept of stage setting too. Karanth evolving a new stylized form much different from both the classical and the folk. In the area of acting, artistes like C R Simha and G V Shivanand were developing a style much in contrast to that of old-timers like Kailasam, Hirannaiah, Parvathavani and Sampath.

The new respect for the literary qualities of a play was again of a kind very different from the almost dogmatic adherence to the text that Sriranga used to demand. Now such a respect could coexist with and also mean a reworking, a new reading and interpretation of the original text, the chief creative motive being transcreating a literary text into a performance text. Hence Karanth gave up Sriranga's model of an absolutist line-by-line, word-by-word rendering of a play-text. He edited the original according to his needs, sometimes even interpolating his own new elements.

This gave rise to a debate, often controversial, as to how proper was this kind of freedom taken with the original work, as to whose word was final in theatre, whose medium was theatre - the playwright's or the director's. With an increasing emphasis on production, the director came to gain a higher stature as far as the realm of theatre was concerned. Views developed which argued that a theatre production should be discussed more in the light of the director's vision than that of the playwright's "original" text. For after all, any production, this school said, was ultimately an attempt at understanding and interpreting the original play and playwright.

For instance, G B Joshi's Sattavara Neralu is not considered a work of any importance in literary circles, but Karanth's production (1974) brought it immense recognition. Using the famous 16th-century saint-poet Purandara Dasa's compositions for the choral songs, Karanth created an altogether new text in his theatre work. Although based on and inspired by Joshi's original, Karnath's Sattavara Neralu bore such an individual stamp as to be regarded an independent work of its own.

Comments, half-bouquetful, half-barbed, that he could transform even a drab newspaper item into a magical theatre event, gained circulation. There was also criticism that theatre being more of a festive celebration for Karanth; his selection of plays lacked an ideological consistency. Oflate, he has been placing more emphasis on words, that is, speech, intonation and pause, but there does not seem to be any revolutionary change in terms of content. His most recent production, Gokula Nirgamana, is a striking exception, fusing content and form flawlessly.

It is undeniable that over the past three decades, Karanth has given Kannada theatre an authentic and unique mode, which can unreservedly b called the Karanth school. With his wizardly powes of ceaseless exploitation of the manifold possibilities of a play and its production, and of transmuting theatre space, time and action into a wondrous celebration, Karanth has won for modern Kannada theatre a name and dignity matching that of modern Kannada literature.

Amateur theatre maintained an intimate relationship with its contemporary literary movements. The seventies placed in the forefront the question of ideological commitment and leftist movements grew. Against this background, it was only natural that street-plays gained prominence during the decade. The form questioned, altered and expanded the very concepts of literature and theatre, with an insistent demand that like language, theatre, too, be used for day-to-day affairs, for immediate responses to social issues and as a tool for political movements and agitations.

It came out of closed auditoriums and found a place on the streets, enabling people to respond to it even while going about their everyday activities. This extended the idea of the actor-spectator relationship and notions about acting style, costumes, props also changed as "meaningful functionality" became the vital refrain of this theory of theatre. Although it sometimes reduced theatre to simplified sloganeering, this movement nevertheless created new images through productions like Belchi and Patre Sangappane Kole Prakarana.

Organizations like Samudaya, Dalita Kala Mandali and Chitra staged hundreds of street-plays all over the state. In retrospect, none of these plays merit serious attention as classic works. All the same, being the immediate and often incandescent theatrical responses to events of their time and place, they retain a certain historical importance and relevance.

The cultural movement of which the street-play was one manifestation also deeply and decisively influenced at another level our major writers and theatre figures. Along with its street-plays, a troupe like Samudaya also staged several classics. While Pirandello, Camus, Sartre and Beckett were the major foreign influences in the sixties, it was Gorky, Chekhov and Brecht during the seventies. At the same time, as more translations of plays from other languages than original Kannada ones were being staged. Karnad, Kambar and Lankesh made new experiments in playwriting.

Karnad and Kambar especially were to reexamine the question of a meaningful and mutually beneficial relationship between traditional folk theatre and contemporary theatre, and the desirable forms that this relationship should take. The most outstanding director of this period was Prasana. One of the founders of Samudaya, he did not confine himself to street-plays.

Evolving a method entirely different from Karanth's, he gave a new direction to Kannada theatre. He often wrote plays of his own, for instance, Ondu Loka Kathe, Dangeya Munchina Dinagalu and Tadrupi. Although not considered major plays by literary standards, they were wonderful successes as theatre. His stage composition was closer to painting, photography and film whereas Karanth's approximated music, dance and celebration. For Karanth, theatre was a ritual, a festival, while for Prasanna it was a critical and interpretative forum.

Karanth's vision flashed through incomparable intuition, but for Prasanna it was a question of intellectual exploration. Prasanna's production of Galileo inspired completely new thinking in Karnataka not only about choice of subject, stage design and visual composition, but the whole purpose of theatre. He created a mode distinct from the realistic experimentation of Kailasam and Sriranga, the stylization of Karanth and the propagandist, reformist model of his own times. While he always regarded his theatre work as a form of political activity, he did not reduce it to simplistic propaganda.

He was thus unquestionably the first to bring validity and dignity to leftist theatre in Karnataka. Prasanna has firmly established himself as a vital contrast to Karanth's talent. To this day, they are the only two Kannada directors who have earned as much respect as have the modern writers, being as important and indispensable to Kannada theatre as Karnad, Lankesh, Kambar or K V Subbanna (founder of Ninasam).

Kannada theatre has not really moved any further from the Karanth school or the Prasanna school. Directors who came afterwards have only been imitating them or at best are engaged in a creative battle to free themselves from their pervasive influence.

*The above article appeared in a newsletter called "Theatre 4 U" that was distributed during the Prithvi Festival of 1997. Some of the inputs in this article are from RASA.