The Spatial-Temporal Canvas That We Call the Stage: Text and Performance in Final Solutions
The article studies the significance and function of stage directions in Mahesh Dattani’s Final Solutions (1993). The stage directions propel the play-text to transcend into a performative script. Scholars Jisha Menon (2013) and Aparna Dharwadker (2005) commend Dattani’s ‘innovative’ dramaturgy for...
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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Atatürk University
2024-09-01
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| Series: | Theatre Academy |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/4112215 |
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| Summary: | The article studies the significance and function of stage directions in Mahesh Dattani’s Final Solutions (1993). The stage directions propel the play-text to transcend into a performative script. Scholars Jisha Menon (2013) and Aparna Dharwadker (2005) commend Dattani’s ‘innovative’ dramaturgy for realistically representing the urban-middle-class home along with the complex social issues pervading this social milieu. This article argues for their assertion and extends their studies by examining the source of Dattani’s inventive stagecraft – his stage directions. It argues that Dattani challenges the label of dramatic text through his stage construction and stage directions. These directions add theatricality and render a visual appeal to the written text, which acts as a ‘drama’ for the students and critics of literature and a ‘fabel’ or a blueprint for other directors. The ostension of multiple levels of space-time in the text through stage directions reifies the mise-en-scene in the readers’ minds and also foregrounds Dattani’s reformist method of creating a conflict in his readers/audiences’ minds. Using a comparative analysis of the stage directions in the play-text by Dattani and a stage production by the Delhi-based Asmita Theatre under the direction of Arvind Gaur, it foregrounds Dattani’s extravagant and complex construction of the stage. It studies his distinct usage of the stage as a ‘spatial-temporal’ entity and establishes that Dattani’s stage directions are quintessential to his reformist agendas. |
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| ISSN: | 2980-1656 |