Lila is a theological word before it is a theatrical one: the play of God, the divine activity that creates and sustains worlds without need or effort. Calling these performances Ramlila therefore makes a claim, that when the epic is enacted, Rama's play is present, not represented, and the tradition takes the claim seriously.
The boys chosen to embody Rama, his wife Sita and his brothers are called svarupas, forms of the deity; for the duration of the cycle they are treated with the honours of temple images, garlanded, saluted and carried, and the evening's performance commonly closes with arati, the lamp offering, made to the crowned actors exactly as to icons.
The audience is a congregation. Spectators shout the victory of Rama at the high moments, and the sadhus who follow the great cycles attend as pilgrims. The text sung and spoken beneath the action is the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas, whose verses a ramayani chants while the dialogues unfold, so the performance is simultaneously a recitation of scripture and its enactment. The cycle's shape follows the epic: exile, abduction, the search, the war before Lanka, and at Dussehra the victory, when towering bamboo-and-paper effigies of Ravana, his brother and his son, packed with fireworks, burn before enormous crowds, an image of evil consumed that has become one of the most recognisable religious spectacles in the world.