Decolonizing the Stage Theatrical Syncretism and Post-Colonial Drama

Decolonizing the Stage is a major study devoted to post-colonial drama and theater. It examines the way dramatists and directors from various countries and societies have attempted to fuse the performance idioms of their indigenous traditions with the Western dramatic form. The study provides a theoretically sophisticated, cross-cultural comparative approach to a wide number of writers, regions, and theater movements, ranging from Maori, Aboriginal, and native American theater to Township theater in South Africa.

Decolonizing the Stage is a major study devoted to post-colonial drama and theatre. It examines the way dramatists and directors from various countries and societies have attempted to fuse the performance idioms of their indigenous traditions with the Western dramatic form. These experiments are termed 'syncretic theatre'. The study provides a theoretically sophisticated, cross-cultural comparative approach to a wide number of writers, regions, and theatre movements, ranging from Maori, Aboriginal, and native American theatre to Township theatre in South Africa. Writers studied include Nobel Prize-winning authors such as Wole Soyinka, Derek Walcott, and Rabindranath Tagore, along with others such as Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Jack Davis, Girish Karnad, and Tomson Highway. Decolonizing the Stage demonstrates how the dynamics of syncretic theatrical texts function in performance. It combines cultural semiotics with performance analysis to provide an important contribution to the growing field of post-colonial drama and intercultural performance.

List of Illustrations; Introduction; 1. Indigenous theories of syncretic theatre; 2. Ritual frames and liminal dramaturgy; 3. Language and the post-colonial stage; 4. Orality as performance; 5. Visualizing the body; 6. Dance and body language; 7. Spaces and spectators; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index