Description
Seagull Books London Ltd Colonial Staged - Theatre In Colonial Calcutta 2008 Edition by Sudipto Chatterjee
From the late eighteenth century, Calcutta, first city of the British empire, has been a hub of intersecting ideas and movements of change. Nowhere did the restless currents of history play themselves out more graphically than in the composite art of theatre and performance. This pioneering study of the history of the Bengali theatre looks at the plays mounted in the city in the 18th and 19th centuries and their reception. It goes on to study the cultural efflorescence known as the "Bengal Renaissance" and the subsequent politicisation of a theatre imbued with ideas of nationalism and social reform, with a particular focus on the complex and problematic issue of the place of women in theatre. Table of contents : - 1. Staging of the Native: The Russian, the Babu and the Mother2. Mise en (Colonial) Scene: Theatre of the Bengal Renaissance3. Twixt the Twain: From Colonial Jatra To Native Theatre4. Mother(s) of Invention: Prostitute-Actresses and Late Nineteenth Century Bengali Theatre