On the opening night itself, there was enough drama. Well-known director, Prasanna’s acceptance letter for the B V Karanth award set the tone. The letter said he couldn’t come to Delhi to accept the award as he was sitting in satyagraha (indefinite hunger strike) at Bangalore on behalf of Abhivakthi Abhiyaan, an all India organisation of theatre workers. The demands were: one, that all national language theatre of India be recognised as national theatre and two, that the theatre-in-education programme be implemented in all government schools in India through a centrally-sponsored scheme.

Looks like it was a case of being at the right place at the right time. When spoken to, an obviously-pleased Prasanna said: “I have called off my strike as the Minister for Culture, Ambika Soni, has announced the setting up of NSDs in Karnataka, Maharashtra, North-East, Jammu and Kashmir and West Bengal.” How things work on the ground, however, is a reality we have to watch out for.

These are issues the theatre community has been grappling with for years— the paucity of funds, the partiality to Hindi theatre and the lack of opportunities. The counter to the “one nation one theatre” (in this case Hindi theatre) argument is this: if there are other national languages, all theatre in these languages should be considered national theatre, not regional theatre. Why should Hindi be the chosen one? After all, as Prasanna says: “theatre is an expression that is attached to the word, to the text.” What is the point in training a student in Hindi theatre (in NSD) when he has been raised on a mother tongue other than Hindi. The student will have to start afresh by learning Hindi and then acting in Hindi. That puts him/her at a disadvantage. If that very student acts in his own language, the result would be far superior. The endemic connection with the audience would also be far greater.

Then there is theatre that is beyond language, which many dismiss. But the reality is that out of a total of 52 productions that NSD has put up this year, almost 50% fall in the dance-theatre genre. NSD director, Devendra Raj Ankur explains thus: “with globalisation, use of dance, mime and body language, with fewer words, more music is becoming prevalent."

So is it about adapting theatre to suit a foreign audience? Perhaps that's the way some look at the move. But contrast this with what Polish director Leszek Bzdyl says about his production Several Witty Observations which was staged in the festival. "We haven't changed anything in the play to suit Indian audiences. We don't even know what your culture is like. This is our first visit to India." A play with just one line spoken in Polish and the rest using dance and gestures, Several Witty Observations has a cast of three, of which each one believes the production to be different. One says it is a dance piece, the second says it is theatre and the third says it is somewhere in between. Clearly, anything goes.

Director Bapi Bose, whose play Pratham Parth is part of the festival, is almost sarcastic when he says: “In the name of doing something different, people in the theatre world have often advised me: ‘why don’t you collaborate with a sculptor or a painter.’ To me that isn't theatre. It is meaningless. Such productions, the so-called “feminist theatre” goes abroad. This is the new fashion. I’d much rather do theatre for my own people in India.”

Then there is a paucity of scripts, even in Hindi. Anuradha Kapur, professor western drama, NSD however, says that “in scripts, the desire to deal with the contemporary is strong—urbanity, call centres, stress in the city.”

But the cash crunch is what troubles one and all in the theatre world. The inadequacy of government funding is obvious. Corporate funding is also primarily for English theatre. But, like Kapur says: “Nowhere in the world has critical theatre survived on corporate funding.”

Well, theatre without sponsorship is how it is still flourishing in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Bengal.So looking for government/corporate funding might not be the answer.