Tiatr - History

History

Prior to the emergence of tiatr, entertainment in Konkani was mainly through zagors and khells. Both of them had their distinct style. While the zagor was more lyrical, the khell had dialogues and while the former was more popular in Bardez, the latter was firmly entrenched in Salcete.

Costancio Lucasinho Caridade Ribeiro, more popularly known as Lucasinho Ribeiro, who was from Assagao was seeking employment in Bombay. Passionate about the performing arts, he was highly impressed with the stylised Italian operas performed there. He took up a job for an Italian opera troupe which was touring Indian cities at the time, staging an opera called 'Italian Boy'. When the troupe left India, Lucazinho Ribeiro bought the costumes used in the play with the intention of staging a Konkani play on the style of the Italian Opera. His collaborators in the effort were Caetaninho Fernandes of Taleigao and Joao Agostinho Fernandes of Borda, Margao.

On Easter Sunday, 17 April 1892 the first tiatr performance ever, Italian Bhurgo, adapted from the Italian play, was staged at the New Alfred Theatre, Bombay. This day is celebrated as Tiatr Dis (Tiatr Day). Hence, the Goan art form of tiatr was the product of the meeting of Goan culture and the opera of Italy, which, incidentally is the birthplace of the opera, and the tiatr was born in Bombay. Since there were many different scenes in this tiatr and as it required different stage sets, they thought of dropping the curtain and introducing songs and dances in front of the curtain. This was needed to entertain the audience while the Stage Setting was being done behind the curtain. These songs and dances did not have any relevance to the theme of the play.

The first original tiatr script was written and directed by Joao Agostinho Fernandes, entitled Belle de Cavel or Sundori Cavelchi in 1895 in Bombay and for all his consistent devotion and encouragement over fifty years, he was conferred the title Pai Tiatrist (Father Tiatrist).

Mrs. Regina Fernandes, wife of the playwright Joao Agostinho Fernandes, became the first female tiatr actor in "Bhattkara" on 22 November 1904. Divorce, a tiatr written and directed by Airistides Dias was the first konkani tiatr to complete 100 performances on 5 October 1980.

Before Tiatr was born, entertainment for the Goan masses was provided by folk dramatic forms namely Zagor & Khell. Zagor was popular in North Goa whereas Khell, which was also known as Fell, was popular in South Goa.

However as time passed the standard of Zagor as well as Khell deteriorated in quality with the introduction of elements of vulgarity. Educated people stopped patronizing the Zagor as well as the Khell. While tiatr was making its presence felt, its original form – the zagors and the khells - were dying a slow death and the zagor finally stopped being performed while the khells continued.

But in 1956 the khell underwent a dramatic change. Given its state at that time, Antonio Moraes thought it fit to take the khell from the street performance to a stage performance. Helped by his friend and colleague Antonio Marian, the khell was performed on a stage for the first time with a backdrop and other paraphernalia associated with theatre. The first Khell Tiatr 'Sandlolo Put' written and directed by Antonio Moraes was staged on the third day of Carnival of March 1956. However, this form became very popular only in the 1970s when Rosario Rodrigues coined the term khell tiatr and came up with extremely successful shows. Thus, the ground based plays known as Khells evolved onto the stage and further into 'Non-stop dramas' but have now generally dropped this label and are generally referred to as Tiatrs.

Tiatr contributed to keeping the Konkani language alive during Portuguese colonial rule, when Konkani was suppressed. Tiatrists played a major role in the struggle to make Konkani the officials language of Goa.

In 2007, the Government of Goa started the Tiatr Academy of Goa to facilitate the development of Tiatr. In 2008 legislation was approved granting 15 lakh rupees to the newly formed Tiatr Academy of Goa.