Decolonizing the Stage: Theatrical Syncretism and Post-Colonial Drama

Decolonizing the Stage is a major study devoted to post-colonial drama and theatre. It examines the way dramatists and directors from various countries and societies have attempted to fuse the performance idioms of their indigenous traditions with the Western dramatic form. These experiments are termed 'syncretic theatre'. The study provides a theoretically sophisticated, cross-cultural comparative approach to a wide number of writers, regions, and theatre movements, ranging from Maori, Aboriginal, and native American theatre to Township theatre in South Africa. Writers studied include Nobel Prize-winning authors such as Wole Soyinka, Derek Walcott, and Rabindranath Tagore, along with others such as Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Jack Davis, Girish Karnad, and Tomson Highway. Decolonizing the Stage demonstrates how the dynamics of syncretic theatrical texts function in performance. It combines cultural semiotics with performance analysis to provide an important contribution to the growing field of post-colonial drama and intercultural performance.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations Introduction 1. Indigenous theories of syncretic theatre 2. Ritual frames and liminal dramaturgy 3. Language and the post-colonial stage 4. Orality as performance 5. Visualizing the body 6. Dance and body language 7. Spaces and spectators Conclusion Bibliography Index

Review :
`wide-ranging, comparative monograph ... Balme's ambitious project is very successful. It provides a useful conceptual framework within which to examine the diversity of post-colonial performance practices and compelling close readings of individual texts. Moreover, it opens the field of post-colonial theatre studies to include works little-discussed to this point without over-extending the use of a post-colonial rubric. Written in a clear and engaging style, Decolonizing the Stage contributes handsomely to a growing corpus on Anglophone post-colonial theatre.' Erin Hurley, Theatre Journal, 53/2 May 2001 `One of the book's great strengths is the simultaneous range and focus of Balme's examination. Geographically and culturally, this spans the (primarily English-speaking) post-colonial nations and regions of India, Africa, the Caribbean, Australia, New-Zealand, and Canada through a compelling comparative analysis. Usefully, however, he also focuses on the work of particular playwrights within these regions ... so that his examples are constructively developed.' New Theatre Quarterly `Building on the fieldwork of other scholars as well as his own, Balme brings to this field a rigorous grasp and lucid presentation of the relevant theory ... should add to ongoing debate about postcolonial theater including debate about the value of the term itself.' Loren Kruger, Research in African Literatures Vol 30 no 4 Winter 1999 `Balme's book makes a major contribution to the emerging body of criticism dealing with post-colonial drama... the real merit of this book is the extraordinarily wide range of dramatists it covers, many of whom will be unfamiliar even to scholars supposedly well-versed in the field. Balme does a good job of finding common elements in this extremely diverse mass of material, while at the same time doing justice to the genuine differences among the authors he analyzes... presented in admirably clear and straightforward prose.' Virginia Quarterly Review, Vol.76 No.1