WaterLogs: A Study of Water Crisis and Theatre

Nayar, Nayantara (2025) WaterLogs: A Study of Water Crisis and Theatre. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

This creative-critical thesis seeks to answer the question ‘How can creative, theatrical interventions help reform and redirect contemporary, urban water imaginaries?’. The critical section of the thesis is a study of three play scripts dealing with water crises written by Indian theatre makers, Thaneer! Thaneer! (2001) by Komal Swaminathan, Sordid by V. Balakrishnan (2019), and Plan B/C/D/E (2021) by Meghana A.T. This thesis uses conceptual metaphor theory to read these texts and demonstrate how we make sense of, rationalise and materialise water. It argues that these scripts offer insights into what constitutes urban water imaginaries in contemporary India, i.e., how people relate to, think about and use water, and how such imaginaries transform and are transformed by social, political and cultural institutions and systems. The creative section of the thesis, three scripts that have been written over the last four years, picks up interesting ideas and themes from the critical work and continues the study of contemporary water imaginaries. The scripts use different dramaturgical lenses to examine various kinds of water crises: Flood City is a series of linked playlets that focus on the survivors of a catastrophic storm; Lost Waters is a site-specific audio play about urban development, river pollution, and how we classify and make sense of the natural world; Theertham is a stage play that follows the story of an impoverished widow and her daughter who learn, amid an approaching drought, that their house sits on top of an enormous, untapped freshwater aquifer. The creative and critical components thus seek to contribute towards contemporary ecological movements in India working to transform people’s relationship with water and the natural world.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	02 Oct 2025 08:32
Last Modified:	02 Oct 2025 08:32
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/100585
DOI:

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