On my 17th birthday, my grandmother took me to a tiatr. It was the raging hit of its time, Roseferns’s Ghantt ( Bell ). I think the reason I remember it so vividly is because the whole jam-packed auditorium had collapsed, helpless with laughter, during the side-show comedy routines. We had to look away from the stage to give our aching sides respite. It remains one of my abiding memories.

From the time we were allowed to play football unsupervised in the streets (we must have been seven or eight), the heady world of tiatr was a tangible presence in our lives. I remember having to clear the road, our impromptu playground, to give way to Ambassador cars fitted with colourful posters announcing the latest tiatr, and loudspeakers blaring “ Chotrai! Chotrai! ” (Attention! Attention!), followed by the name of the tiatr, and a sensational sales pitch inviting onlookers. We would run after the cars, a whole gaggle of children competing with each other, to collect the playbills chucked out the windows.

In my teens, I also played violin, a rather unusual choice of instrument for tiatr, in a few local amateur productions. It was an early introduction to showbiz, the world of actors, make-up and prompters behind curtains.

Tiatr (a Konkani corruption of teatro , the Portuguese word for theatre), Goa’s vibrant trademark theatre, has been a part of its cultural landscape for almost a century and a quarter. However, the first tiatr was staged not in Goa, but in Bombay (today Mumbai) on April 17, 1892 for an Easter celebration. The production was titled Italian Bhurgo (Italian Boy) , written by Lucasinho Ribeiro. He had been part of the crew of an Italian opera company touring India at the time and was inspired to write and direct a Konkani play with music, perhaps along the lines of the opera.

In the cast of this historic production was João Agostinho Fernandes, widely considered the “Father of Tiatr” today for taking the art form to the next level, scripting his own plays and having the foresight to document them for future generations.

Since then, tiatr has evolved into a robust industry, with a massive following not just in Goa and Mumbai, but also other Konkani strongholds such as Mangaluru, and overseas (Gulf countries, the UK, Canada) where there is a sizeable expat Goan population.

Tomazinho Cardozo, the experienced tiatr playwright, educationist and first president of Tiatr Academy of Goa or TAG (founded in 2009), estimates that if one puts together commercial, amateur and village tiatr productions, there are probably around 300 tiatrs produced annually in Goa alone. The actual number is probably higher.

The popularity of tiatr can be gauged just by scanning English and Konkani dailies, whose pages are bursting with colourful advertisements, many of them proudly proclaiming that they have crossed ‘a century’ (100 shows), or that recent performances have been sold-out.

The precursors to tiatr are folk dramatic forms known as zagor in North Goa and khell (or fell ) in South Goa, respectively, staged at village feasts. The modern tiatr is still a staple of village feasts.

A typical tiatr will have six or seven acts ( pordhe ), each about 20 minutes long. They are separated by a couple of songs ( cantaram ) which are often far-removed from the plotline, and can be crowd-pullers on account of their catchiness and hilarity. The side-show comedies are also popular fillers. The songs and comic acts in front of the curtain facilitate the change of sets and props behind it as well.

I asked popular tiatrist Roseferns (Antonio Rosario Fernandes), often dubbed ‘King of Centuries’ for his many runaway successful tiatrs, how he begins to write. “The first thing is the idea, or the concept. Tiatrs must have a message. Everything else gets built around this,” says Roseferns, who is also first vice-president of TAG.

The process takes him a month or two. Agostinho Temudo, tiatrist and current president of TAG, also needs a month, and takes on an average of two productions a year. He has embraced technology, saving his scripts on his laptop. Another tiatrist, Mario de Menezes is famous in the industry for scripting a tiatr in as little as three days.

Most tiatrs focus on a social, religious or political message, which is sometimes apparent from the title. A tiatr currently on show is Sot Khoim Asa? (Where is the Truth?), which explores conflicts of faith among Catholics and other sects of Christianity.

Tiatr is an extremely powerful vehicle for socio-political change. It was heavily censored during the final decades of Portuguese colonial rule for this reason. Tiatr has been at the forefront at all the pivotal points in Goa’s post-Liberation history, from the 1967 opinion poll (when Goans overwhelmingly opted against a merger with Maharashtra), to the present, with the progressive loss of Goa’s scenic beauty, fragile ecological balance and a sense of unique identity.

Francis de Tuem’s hard-hitting tiatr Reporter (2015) uses artistic licence with current political events to lampoon politicians and chide the media for their spinelessness. It was a roaring success, quickly crossing a century, and giving the political establishment many a sleepless night.

What does the future hold for tiatr? “Tiatr will need to change with the times, and attract more young people, especially the college-going demographic,” Cardozo says. But he is in no doubt about its current state of health. “There is no other dramatic form which can match the popularity of tiatr in Goa. Konkani tiatr is the Stage of Goa. ”

(Luis Dias is a freelance writer based in Goa)

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