Pip: Welcome to ashlit.in, where the oldest human impulse — gathering around a fire and saying “listen, here’s what happened” — turns out to still be running the show.
Mara: Today’s episode comes from Dr Aswathy Aravindakshan, and we’re looking at how storytelling and theatre have shaped each other across cultures and centuries. Let’s start with that shared journey.
Storytelling and Theatre: Ancient Roots to Modern Stage
Pip: The central question here is deceptively simple: if storytelling and theatre are both about stories, what exactly is the relationship between them — and how far back does it go?
Mara: The post traces it to the very beginning, and puts it plainly: “Early people shared stories orally around fires, in villages, and during festivals. Later, these stories were acted out, leading to the development of theatre.”
Pip: So theatre isn’t a separate invention — it’s what happens when storytelling acquires a body. The oral tradition didn’t get replaced; it got staged.
Mara: And the lineage runs through some significant names. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey fed directly into Greek tragedy and comedy. Shakespeare drew on narrative tradition to build Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet. The story came first; the performance gave it a room to happen in.
Pip: The Indian thread is just as deep, and arguably more continuous. The Ramayana and Mahabharata moved from oral storytelling into dramatic performance — and forms like Harikatha and Dastangoi kept narration, music, and acting woven together rather than separating them out.
Mara: Kerala gets specific attention here. Koodiyattam — described as one of the oldest theatre traditions in the world — presents stories from Sanskrit literature on stage, while Aithihyamala preserves the region’s legends through narrative.
Pip: Then modernity arrives, and the interesting move is that it doesn’t break the connection — it reloads it. Brecht, Miller, Beckett on one side; Girish Karnad, Vijay Tendulkar, Badal Sircar on the other. Street theatre in India turned the old village-fire setup into social protest.
Mara: The post’s conclusion holds the whole arc together: “Storytelling gives life to theatre because every play or performance is based on a story. Theatre makes storytelling more powerful by adding visual and dramatic elements.”
Pip: One feeds the other, and apparently always has. The technology changes — lighting rigs, Broadway houses, street corners — but the story is still the load-bearing structure.
Mara: Which raises the question of what gets lost and what gets gained each time a story moves from one form to the next.
Pip: That tension — between the told story and the performed one — turns out to have a very long address.
Mara: More from ashlit.in next time.
Dr Aswathy Aravindakshan is a teacher, bilingual writer and artist with over two decades of experience in teaching English language and literature. She currently serves as Assistant Professor of English at NSS College for Women, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India. Her blog, ashlit.in brings together academic resources, creative writing in Malayalam and English, and visual art. The platform features lecture notes, study materials, poems, reflections, short prose, and a curated collection of her paintings. Through this space, she seeks to foster learning, creativity, and meaningful engagement with literature and the arts.
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