Each of the playwrights in this collection takes a folktale and turns it into a contemporary experimental play, intervening in the traditional material and reshaping conventions from an urban perspective. Although the folk and rural element remain embedded in the body of the narratives, it is interesting to note the shifts and intersections which occur in the process of rendering folklore as a present-day performative text. Jokumaraswami by leading Kannada playwright and poet Chandrasekhar Kambar is a vibrant, earthy play which creatively reworks the folk myth of a phallic god of fertility into a powerfully contemporary anti-feudal message. Pebet is a folktale about a mother bird fighting to protect her children from a predatory cat politicized by H. Kanhailal, who transforms this familiar story into a struggle against the political and cultural colonization of Manipur. Charandas Chor by veteran playwright/director Habib Tanvir, performed by Naya Theatre’s Chattisgarhi folk artists, is a contemporary Indian classic depicting the irrepressible folk hero and ‘honest thief’, Charandas, a Robin Hood figure who charms his way into everyone’s heart.
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