CONTENTS

I—PROLOGUE 1 Overview: Utpal K Banerjee 3 Bengali Theatre Overview: Mumtajuddin Ahmed 9

II—BENGALI THEATRE: LEGACY 19 My Statement Binodini Dasi 21 Golapsundari: The First Actress Debashis Roy Chowdhury 29 Rakhaldas Banerjee: Pioneer Theatre Critic Durga Dutta 33 : Actor and Playwright 37 Girish Chandra and Mythical Plays Samik Bandyopadhyay 41 Views of Sisir Kumar on Theatre Debnarayan Gupta 45

HI—BENGALI THEATRE: EVOLUTION 47 Old Calcutta's English Theatres Kironmoy Raha 49 ' and Mainstream Theatre 54 The Theatre of the Post-Thirties Purabi Mukherjee 63 Proscenium Theatre of Bangladesh Ramendu Majumder 65 Changing Role of Theatre in Society Rustam Barucha 72 Evolution Behind the Theatre Curtain Suresh Dutta 78

IV—BENGALI THEATRE: PLURALITY 83 Innovation and Experimentation in Theatre 85 Bengali Theatre: The Folk and The Foreign Bibhas Chakraborty 92 The Hijack of Yatra 96 My Narrative Theatre Saoli Mitra 102 Theatre of Politics, Protest and Commitment Bishnupriya Pal 109 Commercial Stage and Group Theatre: Similarities and Contrasts Meghnad Bhattacharjee 120 Bengali Puppet Theatre Sampa Ghosh 125 V—BENGALI THEATRE: EXPRESSION 133 The Sailboat of Fantacy Shyamal Ghosh 135 The Actress: Down the Ages Shova 139 Acting in Multiple Media Mohammad Zakaria 143 Acting and Transcendental Time Debashis Majumdar 147 Advent of New Playwrights 153 Terms of Our Art-Form Khaled Choudhury 158 A Tradition of Stagecraft Durga Dutta 170 The Luminous Beginning 172

VI—INTERACTIONS WITH BENGALI THEATRE 181 The Expanded Theatre 183 Bengali Theatre: Persons and Performances J.N. Kaushal 187 Documentation and Presentation in Bengali Theatre Pratibha Agrawal 191 Urban Theatre: From Roots to Avant Garde Rita Ganguly 196 Viewing Bengali Theatre Nemichand Jain 209

VII—INDIAN THEATRE PANORAMA 213 Towards a More Popular Theatre Bhisham Sahni 215 Indian Theatre-ln Search of Identity 220 My Theatre Eduction 226 Experimentation and Innovation in Indian Theatre Mohan Maharishi 239 Shifting Boundaries in Theatre Rustam Barucha 245 Indian Theatre Movement as I See It Panna Bharat Ram 249

VIII—EPILOGUE 255 A. A Chronological History of Major Bengali Theatre-Events: Calcutta and Dhaka 257 B. A Contemporary Directory of Major Theatre-Persons and Theatre-Groups: and Bangladesh 266

INDEX 281