Perspectives and Challenges in Indian-English Drama

The present critical anthology on Indian-English drama is a welcome addition to the ever-increasing repertoire of the academic world. It contains some twenty-two papers on diverse authors, themes and trends. The authors treated in it are Girish Karnad, Mahesh Dattani, Badal Sircar, Rabindranath Tagore (chronologically, Tagore should have been placed first), and Vijay Tendulkar. The themes dealt with herein are myths and folk tales, religious propensity, social alienation, audience participation, feminine psyche, role of freedom, and man-woman relationship. And the trends touched upon in this anthology are mythic and symbolic interpretations, focusing on folklore, experimentations in Third Theatre and street plays, and feminist approaches to certain plays. The broad spectrum of Indian-English Drama has also been presented in a few papers. In its present shape and size, this anthology will, hopefully, find a place on the library shelves and enlighten the academics on the perspectives and challenges inherent in Indian-English Drama.