Naga-Mandala: Play with a Cobra

Talking of his use of techniques from the folk theatre, playwright Girish Karnad says: ‘The energy of folk theatre comes from the fact that although it seems to uphold traditional values, it also has the means of questioning these values . . . The various conventions—the chorus, the music, the seemingly unrelated comic interludes, the mixing of human and non-human worlds—permit a simultaneous presentation of alternative point of view . . . They allow for, to borrow a phrase from Bertolt Brecht, “complex seeing”…

In N_āg_a_-_M_a_n_d_a_l_a_, Karnad weaves two Kannada folk tales together. The first one comments on the paradoxical nature of oral tales in general: They have an existence of their own, independent of the teller and yet live only when they are passed on from one story-teller to another. Ensconced within this is the story of Rani, who makes up tales to fill the void in her life. Rani’s predicament poignantly reflects the human need to live by fiction and half-truths.

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