The technical and stylistic devices in the theater of India, China, and Japan are used to entertain and enlighten the audience member. Actors and musicians combine to express the lyrical content of the scripts. Performances are more than just a play. A viewer is drawn into an integrative experience that enables him to be a part of the show instead of being simply a witness to it. The focus of these three types of theater is on spiritual matters rather than the physical. Plays are written to teach lessons of life and allow the audience member to transcend the mundane.
Indian plays are written with a certain flavor or rasa in mind. Western culture is used to theater being divided into tragedy and comedy, but within the Indian theater there are eight subdivisions: compassionate, comic, furious, heroic, erotic, terrifying, disgusting and awesome. If a play is performed well, the viewer will be able to identify the particular rasa that is being presented. Poetry and song are used to help convey the different rasas. .
In The Recognition of Sakuntala by Kalidasa, there are many poems that focus on setting a mood rather than developing a plot or character. In the prologue, the Director describes the setting as follows: "Days draw to a close in quiet beauty; plunging in cool waters is delightful; sleep drops softly in thick-shaded haunts; woodland breezes blow fresh and fragrant having consorted with Patali flowers" (267). This kind of description does not limit the play to the actors on stage. It allows the audience members to each be affected by the mood a day like that would produce in an individual.
Moral lessons are woven throughout the play in simple lines that were enjoyable for me to read because of their foreign wisdom: "Is there any denying woodland vines far surpass those nurtured in gardens?" (269). Another example is: "The scintillating lightning -flash does not spring up from the earth" (271).
