The Plays of Girish Karnad: An Archetypal Perspective

Girish Karnad, an ambassador of Indian culture and theatrical heritage to the Western world, is one of those rarest creators who have devoted best of their creative personality in the writing of the plays and their productions. Karnad's plays are outstanding as they embody the tradition of myth, history, legend, and folklores. Karnad's rewriting and remaking of myths and folktales bear some strong intellectual, emotional, and archetypal angle. His journey from Yayati to Wedding Album holds a mirror to the very evolution of Indian theatre after Independence. His plays enable us to say that there is such a thing as truly ‘Indian' theatre which can be true to its traditions and at the same time highly responsive to the contemporary concerns of Indian drama. Since his plays contain certain images, symbols and metaphors from myths, histories, folktales and legends, they have been interpreted as archetypal patterns in the explication of human consciousness and the growth of human civilization.