ABSTRACT
Mahadevshastri Kolhatkar's translation of Othello is considered to be the first translation of a Shakespeare play into Marathi. Over the next fifty years, almost all of William Shakespeare's plays were translated into Marathi. The gap persisted even while some plays grew in popularity. Tragedies were especially popular, even though critics pointed out that Sanskrit theatre did not have a tradition of tragedy. Throughout the 1880s and '90s, the proliferation and popularity of the anti-social-reform farces led critics to debate the aims of drama. What is interesting about both play and review is not merely the idea that one can do what one wants with the Shakespeare's plays, but also the assumption that it is possible to isolate a character in a play and transplant him or her into another play like a detachable unit, not organically embedded in the original context.
