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This article demonstrates how Covid-19 transformed the performance aesthetics of ancient theatre traditions in India. I draw primarily on the October 17, 2020 performance of the Ramlila, the folk staging of Ramayana, produced by the Shri Ram Dharmik Leela Committee, Tri Nagar, one of the most popular theatre troupes in North Delhi. In the first part of the article, I explore the metatheatricality of the production by analyzing its camera-centric aesthetic while demonstrating how the performance divested gods of their power. In the second part, I investigate how the performance's paratextual thematic bestowed power on humans. Broadly, I show that the Covid-era performance of Ramlila marks a break from some of the traditional conventions of performance aesthetics in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review-article focuses on two documentary films on the Ramayan performance tradition in India – Leela in Kheriya (2016), directed by Molly Kaushal, which focuses on a Ramlila performance in the village of Kheria Patiwara in Uttar Pradesh, where the role of Ram is played by a Muslim in the larger context of inter-community harmony, and In the Shadow of Time (2016), directed by Shankhajeet De, which documents the cultural appropriation of Ravana Chhaya, a shadow-puppet tradition from Odisha, by Indian state agencies and urban cultural entrepreneurs. Both films are linked through the affinities of the filmmakers to subaltern communities and the ways in which the Ramayan narrative continues to resonate within the everyday life struggles of local communities. Rustom Bharucha retired as Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies from the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is the author of several books including Theatre and the World: Performance and the Politics of Culture (Routledge, 1993); The Politics of Cultural Practice: Thinking through Theatre in an Age of Globalization (Wesleyan University Press, 2000); Rajasthan: An Oral History—Conversations with Komal Kothari (Penguin, 2003); Another Asia: Rabindranath Tagore and Okakura Tenshin (Oxford University Press, 2006); and Terror and Performance (Routledge, 2014). He has recently completed the volume, Performing the Ramayana Tradition: Enactments, Interpretations, and Arguments , co-edited with Paula Richman. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Indonesia, the Ramayana is performed in multiple theatre genres spanning puppetry, and masked and unmasked dance drama. Still performed throughout much of Indonesia, these forms function as both ritual and secular entertainments, ones distinguished by characteristically Indonesian elements of song, gamelan music, dramatic narration, costuming (including masks and headdresses), and stylized dance and movement. Historically, the Indonesian theatre genre known as wayang wong (dance drama) in particular may have links to the traditional style of Ramlila performed in India. Even today wayang wong has ritual functions in Hindu Bali, and in Muslim Java, where it was once integral to court rituals. However, Indonesian theatre genres are quite distant from Indian ones like Ramlila, and thoroughly reflect Indonesian arts and sociocultural concerns. After a historic pan-Southeast Asian Ramayana festival in Yogyakarta in 1961, Ramayana-themed sendratari (dance drama) became more popular in Indonesia, a predominantly Muslim country with a fondness for the Mahabharata. One performance at the 1961 festival had such an impact, it has continued to be staged at the ninth-century Prambanan temple complex in Central Java up to the present. This report discusses the 2012 National Ramayana Festival held at Prambanan to commemorate half a century of Ramayana performances there. It is intended to give insight into the history of shared ideas and aesthetics in Ramayana-themed performance in Indonesia and India, as well as some of the obvious differences between them. I Nyoman Sedana is an artist and professor at the Indonesian Arts Institute (ISI) Denpasar, Bali, and director of Bali Module and PEPADI (Indonesian Puppetry Association) Bali. He received his MA from Brown University and Ph.D. from the University of Georgia; his work has been supported by Asian Cultural Council, IIAS Netherland, ARI NUS Singapore, ASF Bangkok, Freeman Foundation, etc. He has published articles in Asian Theatre Journal , Puppetry International, Asian Music, and Puppetry Yearbook , and is coauthor, with Leon Rubin, of Performance in Bali (Routledge, 2007). Kathy Foley is former editor of ATJ and a distinguished professor of Theatre Arts at University of California, Santa Cruz. [End Page 228] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lav-Kush Ramlila, staged at the Red Fort, has gained popularity in recent years amongst other similar dramatic re-enactments of the epic saga. Its attractiveness, owing to its casting, includes film and television personalities from entertainment industries across India. While the festivities of many Indian celebrations allow modern audiences to bear witness to an amalgam of ritual, religion, and histrionics, the Ramayan maintains a prime position in shaping the national narrative. What helps sustain its position in the Indian psyche is accessibility to the story of Ram. This article draws attention to the language of the Lav-Kush Ramlila, specifically through translations of three pivotal scenes: Ram's Exile, Lakshman Cuts Off Shurpnakha's Nose , and Hanuman Fetches Sanjivani , as derived from its live performance in 2016 and 2018. The translations are accompanied with summaries and supporting commentaries to further illuminate the performance, its sub-text, and cultural references, as well as an introduction that locates purposeful connections between the performance and Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan which continues to serve public memory, collective sentiment, and Hindutva politics. Radhica Ganapathy is Assistant Professor in the School of Theatre & Dance at West Virginia University. She holds a Ph.D. in Theatre from Texas Tech University. Ganapathy began her career in theatre as a professional actor in New Delhi, India. Prior to WVU, Ganapathy taught at The Pennsylvania State University Berks Campus and Stockholm University in Sweden. She has collaborated with various artists, performers, and scholars in India, Sweden, and the United States. Ganapathy's research engages in critical representations of race, class, gender, and sexuality in twentieth century theatre and performance. Ganapathy is specifically interested in examining notions of performance and performativity in art and the everyday life. [End Page 38] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue is intended to briefly introduce the field of Ramlila, as a performance practice and as an idea. It is designed to give a taste of its geographic range and a sample of its multiple and diverse manifestations in India and the Indian diaspora. The Introduction briefly discusses the literary sources of Ramlila, its history, chief styles, and emerging trends. It also includes a synopsis of the story of Ram in Ramlila. Following this, a translation of three scenes from the Lav-Kush Ramlila in Old Delhi, with a critical introduction, sheds light on the mounting politicization of Ramlila by the Hindu Right. Two articles, one on Nautanki and one on Ramayan Gaan, illustrate that Ramlila is a form of theatre very much in dialogue with other forms of popular performance in the Hindi belt and along its linguistic borders, narratively, aesthetically, and ideologically. A review-essay of two documentaries and an interview with an expert on Kumaoni Ramlila further demonstrate the diversity of Ramayan-themed performance, despite the continued homogenization and commercialization of Ramlila. An article on a distinctive Ramlila in Trinidad and another in the United States (North Carolina) speak to the global reach of Ramlila, and its important role in "homemaking." Finally, a report on a festival to commemorate a Ramayan-themed dance drama (wayang wong) at Prambanan recalls the Ramayan's early journey from South to Southeast Asia. Pamela Lothspeich is Associate Professor of South Asian Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research spans the Hindu epics, modern Indian literature, performance studies, and postcolonial studies. She is the author of Epic Nation: Reimagining the Mahabharata in the Age of Empire (Oxford University Press, 2009). She has been researching Ramlila since 2006, and has observed performances in the state of Uttar Pradesh over seven Ramlila cycles (2006, 2010–2013, 2017, and 2019). She is currently a fellow at the National Humanities Center and completing a book on the Radheshyam Ramayan and the neighborhood Ramlila. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay illuminates cultural resonances between two widely viewed forms of theatre over the last century in North India, Nautanki and Ramlila. It explores some of their common elements, relating to presentation style and narrative content, ones that are common to many other regional forms of Indian theatre. Throughout the twentieth century, Nautanki reigned supreme as the predominant form of opera in North India. While its popularity has diminished somewhat in recent years, Nautanki and its less commercial, more religious "cousin," Bhagat, are still staged, especially in their geographic home in the Braj region. Contrasting one Bhagat play, Sundar kathā by Ram Dayal Sharma, and the parallel episode in Ramlila and the Radheshyam Ramayan (a literary source for Ramlila) by Radheshyam Kathavachak, this essay suggests that these performance forms are deeply interconnected and spring the same cultural soil. As with so many North-Indian performance forms, Ramlila and Nautanki entail charming music, poetry, dramatic acting, and backstage coordination by many people in the community. They are supported by local patronage, and sometimes performed by local volunteers as well. These are performance forms that create strong bonds within the local community. Amateur neighborhood Ramlilas, with their rollicking style and colloquial scripts, are much closer in style and spirit to Nautankis and Bhagats than staid, ritualistic Ramlilas like that of Ramnagar. Devendra Sharma is a fifth-generation Nautanki singer, writer and director, who has performed in more than 1,000 performances. He was the first to introduce Nautanki to audiences in the United States and Europe, where he has performed extensively and trained many artists. He has played the role of Lakshman in an operatic production of Sāket , based on an epic poem by Maithilisharan Gupt, and Ram and the narrator in the Ramlila at the Parvatiya Kala Kendra (PKK) in Delhi. He has also assisted his father who has performed as the vyās (singer-symbolic director) at the Ramlilas of Ashok Vihar and Shalimar Bagh in Delhi. He has been an artist in residence and held visiting [End Page 107] professorships at institutions including Theatre du Soleil in Paris, Columbia University, and the University of Oxford. Sharma is currently professor of Communication and Performance Studies at California State University, Fresno. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indian epic, the Ramayan, has been kept alive in the popular imagination in India, through various textual, oral, visual, and performance forms. While Ramlila is the most popular live performance form to enact the Ramayan in the Hindi-speaking regions of North India, Ramayan Gaan is the form that prevails in the Bengali-speaking regions of West Bengal and Assam in India, and in Bangladesh where the event is also called "Kushan Gaan" or "Kush's Song." While Ramlila is based chiefly on Tulsidas's Rāmcaritmānas , Ramayan Gaan is indebted to Krittibas Ojha's slightly earlier Ramayan. This essay discusses salient features of Ramayan Gaan with occasional reference to Ramlila, illustrating some of their shared narrative and ideological elements as well as some of their critical disjunctures. It underscores the fact that in Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority country, Ramayan Gaan is enthusiastically performed and appreciated by Hindus and Muslims alike. This essay also charts the transitional zone, ontologically and geographically, where Ramlila meets Durga Puja in the eastern regions. Significantly, in Ramayan Gaan, Ram invokes Mahashakti (Durga) before his battle with the ten-headed Ravan, and Sita, in the form of Bhadra Kali, defeats the thousandheaded Ravan. Together, these narrative elements help explain the conjunction of Ramayan Gaan and Durga Puja in the Bengali-speaking regions. Tutun Mukherjee (1952–2020) was Professor of Comparative Literature, and Joint Professor at the Centre for Women's Studies and the Department of Theatre Arts, at the University of Hyderabad, India. She specialized in literary criticism and theory, and her research interests include world literatures and comparative literary studies, women's writing, translation, theatre, and film studies. Her publications include: Staging Resistance: Plays by Women in Translation; Girish Karnad's Plays: Performance and Critical Perspectives; The Plays of Mahesh Dattani: An Anthology of Recent Criticism; "Women's Theatre" in OUP Encyclopedia of Indian Theatres , and 89 research papers and book chapters. She also translated plays by Mridula Garg and Mahesh Dattani. [End Page 89] Saymon Zakaria is Assistant Director in the Folklore Department of the Bangla Academy in Dhaka, Bangladesh. A scholar of Bangladeshi folklore, he wrote a doctoral dissertation titled The Traditional Theater in Bangladesh: Content and Mode of Language. Besides writing plays, he has conducted ethnographic field surveys related to Intangible Cultural Heritage. He has also delivered academic lectures and conducted workshops at universities around the world. His books include Pronomohi Bongomata: Indigenous Cultural Forms of Bangladesh , and Prācīn BāmglārBuddho nāṭok; Bāṃglādeśer loknāṭok: bishoy o āṅgik-baicitrya. He has co-edited, with Keith Cantú, Carol Salomon's City of Mirrors: Songs of Lālan Sāi (Oxford University Press, 2017). In 2019, he was a recipient of Bangladesh's prestigious Bangla Academy Literary Award for his research contributions on Bangladeshi folklore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the principal characters of the Malay versions (Hikayat Seri Rama and Hikayat Maharaja Wana) of the Hindu epic Ramayana, which provides the source material for the Malaysian shadow play, wayang kulit kelantan. The characters are organized into several categories according to whether they are gods, human beings, demons, apes, or lesser creatures. Following that, the paper makes an analysis of eleven characters selected from the categories mentioned, as well as puppets representing them, through the Indonesian-Malay halus-kasar (refined-coarse) theory of aesthetics. Although important and appropriate to proper appreciation of Indonesian and Malay arts forms, the theory has not previously been applied to wayang kulit kelantan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented to a section of the periodical on topics including "The Field of Ramlila" and Asian theatres.