In the historical development of the nation-state, various forms of cultural expression have been instrumental in helping to construct notions of national identity. Recent works on cultural nationalism (such as Edward Said's Culture and Imperialism, Homi Bhabha's Nation and Narration and Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities) have analyzed this process, but to a large extent they have undervalued the role of theatre. For example in Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson highlights the influence of print journalism and literature in establishing the concept of the nation, but hardly mentions the stage. This book attempts to widen the discussion on cultural nationalism by demonstrating the importance of drama and theatrical performance in having contributed to and in continuing to influence the process of representing and challenging notions of national identity.

Theatre has often acted as a site for staging national history, folklore and myths and for formulating national ideology in many parts of the world. With its rhetorical and semiotic features, theatre has offered a particularly effective means of conveying notions of what is national and what is alien. Furthermore, because plays purporting to express national values can be performed in the actual presence of the community (in a public theatre), they can serve not only to make claims for a national identity, but they can also gain immediate communal support or rejection for that assertion.