Prakrits in Performance: Theatricality and Multilingual Drama in Premodern India

Drawing from recent scholarship on the role of Prakrit in South Asian literature at large, this article queries the ways in which the multiple languages of the premodern drama might have functioned in performance. Rather than reading the variance as verisimilar, replicating the diversity of spoken l...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Asian theatre journal 2021-09, Vol.38 (2), p.561-575
Main Author: Culp, Amanda
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ancient languages
Asian literature
Audiences
Drama
Dramatists
Higher education
History
Indian literature
Indo-Aryan languages
Language
Language choice
Language diversity
Linguistics
Multilingualism
Performativity
Sanskrit
Sanskrit literature
Semiotics
Social aspects
Theater
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Summary:Drawing from recent scholarship on the role of Prakrit in South Asian literature at large, this article queries the ways in which the multiple languages of the premodern drama might have functioned in performance. Rather than reading the variance as verisimilar, replicating the diversity of spoken languages found in the premodern subcontinent, this work adapts J.L. Austin's concept of the performative utterance and proposes that language choice in premodern Indian drama be read as part of a schema of performative linguistics. With case studies chosen from Shudraka's The Little Clay Cart and Bhasa's The Five Nights, I argue that Sanskrit and Prakrit as languages do different work in the drama, making language itself a semiotic system within the premodern dramatic tradition. Amanda Culp is a dramaturg and performance historian who specializes in Sanskrit drama, contemporary Indian theatre, and dramaturgy of adaptation. Her writing on Sanskrit theatre in performance has been published in Theatre Journal, the Routledge Companion to Scenography, and the Wiley-Blackwell Companion to World Literature. She has presented her research at the Association for Asian Performance, the American Society for Theatre Research, the Annual Conference on South Asia in Madison, WI, and the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists. She holds a PhD in Theatre from Columbia University, and is currently teaching at Vassar College.
ISSN:0742-5457
1527-2109
1527-2109
DOI:10.1353/atj.2021.0034