Raj Bisaria

Raj Bisaria (10 November 1935 – 16 February 2024) was an Indian director, producer, actor and educationalist, described by the Press Trust of India as "the father of the modern theatre in North India".

Raj Bisaria was born in Lakhimpur Kheri, United Provinces of British India (now in Uttar Pradesh), on 10 November 1935, the son of the late P.L. Bisaria and Leelavati Singh.

He was educated at Colvin Taluqdars' College and Lucknow University, Lucknow, and retired as a senior professor of English Literature from Lucknow University.

The initiative was taken by his University Theatre Group formed in 1962.

He founded Theatre Arts Workshop in 1966, and Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1975 and the repertory company of Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1980.

He blended artistic concepts of the East and the West, and the traditional and the modern.

Four years later, Raj Bisaria founded the Theatre Arts Workshop (TAW) in 1966 and Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts, Government of Uttar Pradesh, in 1975, and the repertory company of BNA in 1981.

He was the first man from Uttar Pradesh to have been awarded a Padma Shree for work in modern theatre and his contribution towards the growth of theatre in India.

Bisaria tried to infuse a new sense of consciousness with regard to the dramatic and performing arts and aesthetic awareness of the performing arts in northern India.

Through the productions of European and Indian plays from 1966 onwards, Bisaria presented a wide spectrum of contemporary world drama as director and designer.

He structured Theatre Training Programmes in U.P. through workshops and certificate and diploma courses in North India from 1966.

As impresario Raj Bisaria's widening interests had led to the introduction of Irshad Panjatan's mime in 1967 and next year the presentation of the Murray Louis Dance Company of USA.

In 1969, Bisaria married the Kiran Kuchawan; the couple have a daughter, Rajina.

External theatre training for Raj Bisaria included an invitation by the British Council, London, to visit the UK and train at the British Drama League (now the British Theatre Association) as a producer, drama instructor, and adjudicator, in 1969.

Raj Bisaria was also a stage director with a grounding in both the western classics and contemporary dramatic works.

Raj Bisaria tried to ensure that the dramatic and performing arts conform to a professional discipline and communicate through a new aesthetic medium.

His plays are concerned with men-women relationships and social issues of special concern to him.

This broadening activity and involvement with the performing arts also saw a classical dance performance by Sonal Mansingh, in 1970, the début of Om Shivpuri's Dishanter group in 1972, a painting exhibition of R.S. Bisht's miniature in 1973, Richard Schechners' environmental theatre presentation of Mother Courage and Her Children from New York in 1976, and the Annapolis Brass Quintet in 1981 - all arranged at the initiative of Raj Bisaria's TAW.

As a dramaturge his primary concern was an effort to resolve the problem of creative reinterpretation of the classical and theatrical art of his region to find itself in contemporary social relevance.

In 1972, he took a major shift in his emphasis from modern Euro-American productions to plays in Hindi of modern Indian playwrights: Mohan Rakesh, Badal Sircar, Adya Rangacharya, Dharamvir Bharti, Shesh and Mohit Chatterjee.

Over the years, Raj Bisaria produced and directed over 75 theatre productions.

Largely using his own devices and creative expression he began his work in English and then to use Hindustani as the spoken medium of expression from 1973.

He encouraged folk theatre in the Uttar Pradesh local genre known as the Nautanki.

In addition he supervised, produced/directed a large number of productions in the Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts from 1975 to 1986 and later on; and also in National School of Drama and for its Repertory Company.

His major productions have included Maxwell Anderson's Barefoot in Athens; Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear; George Bernard Shaw's Candida; Harold Pinter's The Caretaker; Sartre's In Camera; Ionesco's The Lesson; Strindberg's The Father, Jean Anouilh's Antigone; and various plays of Chekhov, Ionesco, Tennessee Williams, Shaffer and others.

His major productions of Indian plays have included Dharamvir Bharati's Andha Yug, Badal Sircar's Baqi Itihas, Adya Rangacharya's Suno Janmejaya, Elkunchwar's Garbo, Mohan Rakesh's Aadhe-Adhure and Mohit Chatterjee's Guinea Pig.

Critics found Ann Jellicoe's The Knack revolting and Sartre's In Camera and Ionesco's The Lesson too demanding.

The TAW team has a group of permanent actors, with other interested parties for different productions.

Lack of men and material compelled Raj Bisaria to stage Othello with only four characters.

And yet it was a memorable performance.

The persistent efforts of Raj Bisaria have yielded results.

He founded in 1975 for the Government of U.P. India's second school of drama: Bhartendu Natya Akademi-Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Raj Bisaria was interested as an actor, director and theatre teacher in the system of Konstantin Stanislavski and Bertolt Brecht.

The Russian theatre practitioner provided the core of Raj Bisaria's directing and pedagogy in contemporary Indian theatre.

Later, he developed his own system of holistic acting, which produced three generations of actors and directors.

As an actor of stage, radio, television and films, Bisaria was known from 1978 as a major actor of the Doordarshan.

As a theatre actor Raj Bisaria did significant roles in several of TAW's English and Hindi stage productions, films and television.

Bisaria played leading roles in at least two dozen plays in English and Hindi, such as:

Bisaria was removed as the honorary director of Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts, and he was assaulted twice, first in 1988 and then in 1995.

Raj Bisaria died after a battle with throat cancer on 16 February 2024, at the age of 88.