ABSTRACT

This book analyses Rabindranath Tagore’s contribution to Bengali drama and theatre. Throughout this book, Abhijit Sen locates and studies Rabindranath’s experiments with drama/theatre in the context of the theatre available in nineteenth-century Bengal, and explores the innovative strategies he adopted to promote his ‘brand’ of theatre. This approach finds validation in the fact that Rabindranath combined in himself the roles of author-actor-producer, who always felt that, without performance, his dramatic compositions fell short of the desired completeness. Various facets of his plays as theatre and his own role as a theatre-practitioner are the prime focus of this book. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in Theatre and Performance Studies and most notably, those focusing on Indian Theatre and Postcolonial Theatre.

chapter |10 pages

Introduction

section 1|26 pages

The historical context

section 2|55 pages

Rabindranath as dramaturge and theorist

chapter 2|24 pages

Theatre and Nation

chapter 3|13 pages

Theatre at the asram-school

chapter 4|16 pages

Theories of theatre

section 3|132 pages

Rabindranath as theatre-practitioner

chapter 5|21 pages

Preparing the playtext

chapter 6|13 pages

Selecting the cast

chapter 7|20 pages

Rehearsing the play

chapter 8|13 pages

Setting the stage

chapter 9|24 pages

Acting the role

chapter 10|9 pages

Theatricalizing cultures

chapter 11|22 pages

Translating the playtext

chapter 12|8 pages

Conclusion