ABSTRACT
The Bengali theatre, emerging in the nineteenth century largely as a by-product of the Bengal renaissance, remained first, a colonial importation, and second, an urban phenomenon. The theatres of the British, constructed in Calcutta from the mid-eighteenth century primarily for the entertainment of the local British residents, provided the model for the Indian/Bengali theatres. When, in the post-Lebedeff era, Bengali theatre stirred back to life on 6 October 1835 with the staging of Vidyasundar, at Nabinchandra Basu’s house at Shyambazar, it took recourse to the Indian love story of Vidya and Sundar, but also borrowed from Western theatrical codes. If Michael, with his Sarmishtha and other tragedies, set the parameters for cultural importation from Western sources, Dinabandhu Mitra’s Nildarpan foregrounded yet another major trend in the Bengal Renaissance theatre. The mythological plays were revisiting myths and legends of ancient India, in accordance with the Revivalist trends of the Bengal Renaissance.
