ABSTRACT
Since joining Jadavpur University in 1993, and until his retirement in 2015, Ananda Lal, one of India’s most eminent theatre researchers and critics and recently retired Professor of English, staged an annual theatre production. Apart from reproducing the kitschy Bollywood aesthetic that fit this play, Lal also made some deliberate attempts to allude to current events that had recently taken place in Kolkata. The London Merchant Venturewell was portrayed as narcissistic caricature, far too confident and arrogant in his demeanor, wearing the typical Kolkata upper class business attire of a safari suit. Incidentally, the criticism directed at the play on its debut four centuries ago proved to be the reason for its success in Kolkata in 2008. Top Girls and The Knight of the Burning Pestle are representative examples from vast repertoire of plays produced under the banner and aegis of JUDE. Both plays originate in social circumstances that are vastly different from those of Kolkata, West Bengal, and India.
