ABSTRACT
Though Rabindranath Tagore, with his experiments and innovations in the field of theatre, created a new model for the modern Indian theatre, his contribution has not quite received the wide acclaim it deserves – whether in the academia or in the theatrical arena. His plays have been studied primarily as creative literature, and mostly appreciated for their literary/philosophical value. The process of fashioning a new theatre, for Rabindranath, became related to the requirements of an emergent nation that he could envision through his own notions of nation-building. His contribution to the Bengali theatre has to be understood in the context of the theatre to which he arrived in the late nineteenth century, and for which he tried to create an alternative model. With the towering presence of Rabindranath amidst them, most among his generation were usually left so awestruck that much of their assessments – even of his career in the theatre – betrayed signs of hero-worship tending towards bardolatry.
