The Interweaving of Folk Strategies in the Plays of Karnad

Indian Folk Theatre is reckoned as just not a theatre form but is now-a-days a lot more. It unfurls the saga of the voyage of Indian drama from the eposes to the modish theatre pattern. It is the chronicle of Indian drama where for the very first time theatre broke the barrier of orchestra and pits and reached the mask in a whole new way through the exotic brilliance of music, song and folklores. The use of folk theatre strategies, the contours of fresh, innovative and flexible dramatic form have gradually emerged, enabling Karnad and his contemporaries to telescope different points in time and space, to bring in many levels of reality simultaneously, or to negotiate them freely in any order. The new form promises to restore the essential imaginative character of drama suitable for presenting complex human experience. Karnad employs in his plays the techniques of classical and folk theatre of India. He makes use of the devices of culture to expose its retrogressive values.