Bengali Theatre 200 Years

Beginning with Lebedeff's path-breaking production of Song Badal on the Calcutta proscenium stage, Bengali theatre has not looked back since. Stalwarts like Sisir Kumar Bhaduri, Girish Chandra Ghosh, Shombhu Mitra, Utpal Dutt and a host of others have literally strided the stage like colossi and the theatre scene has been illumined by hundreds of remarkable performances on myriad themes. This book attempts to capture their vitality and radiance- both in West Bengal and Bangladesh over the last 200 years and beyond, flowing from the pens of some of the theatre stalwarts.

An infinitely colourful and incredibly rich cultural phenomenon like theatre has to have an open-ended continuity: both in the psyche and in the expression of the people and can never have a definitive point of beginning. Even in any single language, the heredity is steeped in many memorable artistic linkages and many manifestations that may or may not have been chronicled. Yet, for the Bengali language, the historical event of an evening in 1795 setting the first ever performance of a theatre event on a proscenium stage remains a recorded fact.

This book attempts to trace the many-splendoured flowering of the Bengali theatre over the past two centuries, ensuing from that beginning. It is neither a comprehensive account of all the happenings in this near-quarter millennium, nor an insight into the rise and decline of many momentous movements in their full spectrum. It is, nevertheless, an attempt to recapture some of the colour, flavour and texture of these two hundred years, by some of the best minds associated with Bengali and Indian theatre. While some of them have penned their thoughts for the first time for this book, some others had their writings concealed in journals published earlier and have given their gracious cooperation to bring them together here. In this endeavour, the original Bengali used for a few articles has been translated into English here to let them reach a universal readership.

**Contents and Sample Pages**