THEATRE IS IN THE VILLAGES 4t experience gained by this exercise, many more workshops must be conducted this year and during the Fifth Five Year Plan to gradually cover all the remaining folk theatre forms of India. The programme of informal education for youth in the performing arts, combined with the expansion and re-orientation of formal education during the same period, should demonstrate, on its completion towards the end of the seventies whether or not a new path has been discovered for the eclectic and multi-faceted development of a genuine contemporary Indian theatre. Much of course will depend upon the change brought about in social and economic relations during the next five or six years—its nature and speed. The Indian experiment is total and as yet unpredictable. 1 The author himself produced an Urdu play, "Agra Bazar" and recently a folk dramatic improvisation in the Nacha style which reflect the same trend. 2 Actually it was the folk theatre techniques, which provided the key to my understanding of techniques involved in classical drama and proved so useful for my production of Sanskrit plays such as Sudraka's "Mrichchakatika" (The Clay Cart) and Visakhadatta^s "Mudrarakshasa5' (The Signet Ring). This annoyed some scholars 3 little but proved quite popular with the audience. 3 This Workshop was directed by the author.