It has literally been a dramatic week in Oman. The 8th Omani Theatre Festival just concluded at the Oman Convention Centre and Salalah is hosting the Dhofar International Theatre Festival 2024. To top it all off, the Royal Opera House Muscat also begins its new season with a dramatic rendition of ‘Un ballo in maschera’, an opera by Giuseppe Verdi.
All of this showcases the continuing popularity of theatre in the modern age. It also answers cynics who wonder what the role of drama could possibly be if infotainment is available across all sorts of digital and electronic formats, at a time of one’s choosing.
Theatre is one of the oldest forms of literature and public entertainment.
Across the world, there have been examples of drama in different cultures. From Kalidasa’s and Bhasa’s Sanskrit plays in the 2nd century BCE in India, the Yüan dynasty plays of the 13th century CE in China and the now-lost Mayan plays of South America, theatre has a rich tradition is various parts of the world. Of course, typically, western drama is seen to have started with the Greeks, especially Sophocles’ tragedies.
Over time, drama has undergone various twists and turns in history, depending on the current social situations at the time. But the one thing that has not changed is that it continues to vitalise societies and remain relevant, in spite of the vast changes around it. Today’s world of mass media definitely poses an important challenge.
In a sense, theatre is the oldest form of mass media. It disseminates information to the public, which typically would have been non-literate. It is an ancient form of communication because it took from oral stories, dramatised them, added some morals and presented it as a teaching tool to share morality and taught correct ways of living.
Drama has always faced challenges to its medium, even from the time of the invention of the printing press. It was feared that people may not actually go to theatres to watch a play if there were now books to read.
A similar kind of concern faces the dramatic community and theatre as a form today. In an age of instant gratification, with multiple storytelling techniques available at the touch of a button, why would people wait for a play to come to a theatre and pay to watch it?
Part of the reason for the popularity of theatre, in spite of its many challenges, is the immediacy of the art form. This is a story being told by real people, behaving in ways that we intrinsically understand.
It is also about community experience. As it is now being documented, the demand for live concerts is at an all-time high. People want to get together, share an experience and its emotions in a way that they cannot do by watching a show on a streaming service, alone at home. Theatre also provides that opportunity to share feelings.
Of course, the challenges facing theatre are not going away. As for almost all art forms, the secret to its survival is innovation. Using more technology for staging, including projection mapping and making the experience more personalised by using VR (Virtual Reality) and AR (Augmented Reality) formats would bring in younger audiences. So would making drama more interactive – almost in the way that ancient theatre used to be.
Drama continues to be a popular medium of entertainment and information because it brings a community together. It holds up the values of a society in creative ways. More innovation may help to keep this literary form in a robust condition.
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