Main Article Content
Abstract
Bengali folk traditions can be rightly called the precursors of modern Bengali theatre. The very idea of ‘performance’ in the public domain arises from ancient practices of community participation in religious or ritualistic activities. This is how the concept of modern theatre in Bengal steadily evolved with time from a more religious bent to a secular one. This paper attempts to examine Bengali rural/folk traditions of performanceas seeds of contemporary theatrein roughly three ways: first, by peeping into the religious traditions of the rural people of Bengal; second, by connecting these ritualistic strands together to see how they gave way to the advent of dramatic traditions and finally by making comparisons with the English theatre traditions to find similarities between the two theatrical cultures as well as understanding the influence of the British in bringing about modernization in Bengali Theatre.