“But in architecture, as perhaps in drama, he (the artist) is closely linked with society, rooted in society. The expression of his art depends upon the state of social development, upon the environment in a way which is far more intimate than in any other form of art.”

Welcome Address, Prof. Humayun Kabir, Architecture Seminar, 1959

Re:Public includes Homai Vyarawalla’s photographs of architectural features of Rajpath and of the Republic Day parades of 1950 and 1951 along with visual and textual theatre ephemera from Central Delhi in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Collectively they propose ‘event’ as common to both theatre and architecture. Transformed through the element of time and charged with a succession of actions – historic, aesthetic or the everyday, architecture could be considered a sensorial and continually unfolding experience – a dynamic performance. “Theatre” refers to both dramatic practice (performance) and the building (architecture) housing it. What then are their conjoined references to the hypothetical and real? How can both be thought of in relation to the events of history?

The Republic Day Parade was initiated on the first anniversary of India as an independent state in 1950. Staged at Rajpath (The Kings Way), designed in the early 20th century as the seat of British colonial power (now renamed Kartavya Path (Path of Duty) in an act of ‘decolonization’) it continues to be the principal mode to rehearse and perform its birth and post-colonial nationhood. By 1952 a cultural pageant had been added to the existing military display. A statement from the Ministry of Education that year stated that ‘this young Republic values cultural progress no less than military strength’. The parade was hence augmented to visually showcase the ‘garb of modernity’ of the newly constituted state with sonic and image representations of dams, power plants, the launching of satellites and atomic power plants.

Delhi’s theatre venues from the 1950s, 60s and 70s in the vicinity of Rajpath were not always designed for theatre practice – they were a hybrid of ‘new’ theatre architectures and stagings within existing colonial and post-independence government buildings. The persistent form of a fan-shaped/shoe-box proscenium theatre, the open air amphitheatre, the intimate and flexible ‘black box’ experimented with multiple and constantly changing dynamics between the spectator and actor.

In the biographies of theatre groups and synopses of plays from theatre brochures and journals of the time, refracted in the evidentiary and lyrical capacities of the actor and the spectator, can we discern the existence of a multivalent and fluid public responding to the idea of independence? How did they negotiate the violence of Partition? How did they grapple large-scale land acquisitions, the dispossession of rural populations, and class and caste divisions which were the legacies of national development and industrialization?

Opening the Drama Seminar of 1956, the chairperson of Sangeet Natak Akademi, P.V Rajamannar, a dramatist and renowned jurist presiding over the Madras High Court, welcomed the delegates outlining, “If the theatre is to be of any moment and significance, it must necessarily be an embodiment of the contemporary life of the nation. Otherwise, the theatre would cease to be a living force…”