By the age of 25, she had formed her

By the age of 25, she had formed her own Equity house in Boston, but it took only a year for her to see that a standard Equity theatre was not what she wanted. A splinter of the original group formed a new company the following year, and things began to happen.

“We were very experimental,” Ms. Portman said with a smile, “but still Western.” Out of a workshop that was given, the group created a piece based on the intense racial tensions of the time. Entitled “Riots,” it began to approach Ms. Portman’s goal of interdisciplinary theatre, featuring acting, movement and live music. The play was an instant success, and the resounding reaction confirmed her belief that die was on to something important.

The company continued to eiyoy success, but after a time, she again began to feel that this was not the right way for her to find what she sought. “I needed to get to the source,” she says. “And so I walked out — literally, in mid-rehearsal. I said, 'Any of you who wants this company may have it — Pm going to walk on the beach’.”

And she did — walked on the beach, thought about her goals, applied for a Fulbright Grant, received it, and went to India, responding to an increasing need “to explore myth — myth in a contemporary sense, my own myth, and what myth means to contemporary man.”

In India, she says, she found “the real stuff”: ancient folk drama that is still alive and relevant, village storytellers everywhere, people performing in the streets or from door to door, sharing stories that are active forces in people’s lives. Linking herself to a master of the classical Indian theatre form Kathakali — “the play of the story” — she studied with him one-on-one from 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. for two years, living the simple village life of rural India an&b&rbing all she could of the role of B0ry, myth and theatre in everyday life. This period of time continues to exert powerful influence on her performing and teaching.