The Comparative Study of Shankaradeva's Ankiya Nat and Italian Commedia Dell' Arte in The Context Of Traditional Theatre

This study is about the two theatrical forms- one is Ankiya Nat and the other is Commedia dell Arte. Thesetwo theatrical forms might have belonged to different geographical area, showing different cultural andsocial values of that particular time zone, instead of this, there is some commonality we can see if we takea glance at these forms. Ankiya nat is a traditional theatre form, created by Srimanta Shankardev, based onthe theme of the Bhakti movement. This particular theatre formed the propagation of the idea of Ek-SaranaNaam-Dharma by Sankardev. The originating of Commedia dell Arte gave a massive change in Europeantheatre form, this where the performances moved from the big courtroom, or church to directly in front ofnormal people. the important difference that we know about the Ankiya Nat and Commedia dell Arte isthat- Sankardev’s Ankiya Nat is based on religious factors and enlightens the people of Assam through hisplay and performance and on the other hand Commedia dell Arte focused only on the entertainment fortheir normal people. despite their different reasons of origin these two forms share some commoncharacteristics, like the elaborate acting style, heavy costume and makeup, interaction with the audience,and improvisation. This study examined the similarity and dissimilarity between Ankiya nat and Commediadell Arte theatre in the context of Traditional theatre.This research paper examined by the descriptive methodology.