British rule made Indian Theatre more pragmatic    The coming of India’s colonial period marked the IIIrd phase. 200 years of the British rule brought the Indian theatre into direct contact with the Western theatre. The writing and practice of theatre became geared towards realistic or naturalistic presentation. While realism or naturalism was present in our existing traditionthrough the concepts of Lokdharmi, i.e., a style of presentation connected with day-to-day gestures and behaviour, the stories used were invariably from the same sources of epics with gods and heroic men. With the coming of the modern theatre, the story also changed. No more was it about big heroes and gods and their seemingly impossible feats, but theatre went on to become a reflection of the realities of the common man.

The earlier forms or phases of ritualistic, traditional and folk theatre fall into the category of the pre-colonial. The colonial phase also saw the emergence of the proscenium, the development of melodrama, and Parsi theatre, which was India‘s first modern commercial theatre.

Source: https://dreamwallets.com/blog/7-facts-indian-theatre-culture-never-knew/