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THEATRE [Playscripts]
Rs 200 £ 14.95 $ 20.95 playwright and poet CHANDRASEKHAR KAMBAR is a vibrant, earthy play which creatively reworks the folk myth of a phallic god of fertility into a powerfully contemporary anti-feudal message. Pebet is a folktale about a mother bird fighting to protect her children from a predatory cat politicized by H. KANHAILAL, who transforms this familiar story into a struggle against the political and cultural colonization of Manipur. Charandas Chor by veteran playwright/director HABIB TANVIR, performed by Naya Theatre's Chattisgarhi folk artists, is a contemporary Indian classic depicting the irrepressible folk hero and 'honest thief', Charandas, a Robin Hood figure who charms his way into everyone's hearts.
Rs 150.00
£ 7.50 $ 11.75
AThese lively plays use witty, tongue-in-cheek comedy to communicate relevant social messages. In Beyond the Land of Hattamala, Kena and Becha, two impudent thieves, jump into a river to escape being caught, and get washed up on the shores of a never-never land where buying and selling are alien concepts, since everyone works unitedly and everything belongs to the entire community, to be used and consumed as needed. Several hilarious misadventures follow as the pair adjusts to the situation. In Scandal in Fairyland a street-smart newspaper boy vends the Daily Fairy Green which carries fresh news of the heroic Prince Thunderbolt, who is a champion at beheading ogres which threaten kingdoms. As the action unfolds we discover wheels within wheels, double-dealing and behind-the-scenes fixing. It all however ends happily in true fairytale fashion. BADAL SIRCAR is a veteran playwright and director who has pioneered an indigenous 'theatre of conscientization', a theatre (of) natural environment, physical acting, slogans and familar sounds, documentary material and sustained movement. SUCHANDA SARKAR is a translator and teacher who lives and works in Calcutta.
Rs 150.00
£ 9.95 $ 14.95
A volume of three street plays from the women’s movement, written in the 1980s and widely performed as part of the vibrant cultural activism of the time. Giving Away the Girl and The Monkey Dance are both anti-dowry plays. Why All This Bloodshed? Was written in the wake of landmark Shah Bano case in the mid-80s, centering around a Muslim woman’s right to maintenance. All the plays remain remarkably relevant, opening up key issues of the movement in a complex and nuanced manner, facilitating debate rather than offering simplistic solutions. Brought together for the first time with an introductory essay by the playwright and a filmmaker and activist Madhusree Dutt, who directed these plays, the book provides invaluable documentations of a significant period on the history of women’s activism in India. These plays have been translated from the Bengali by Sarmistha Dutta Gupta and Paramita Banerjee.
Rs 160 £
11.95 $ 17.95
In this unusual Marathi play the playwright weaves a complex narrative with just four characters – Begum Barve, a smalltime female impersonator who has spent his life playing bit roles in the professional Marathi theatre of the early twentieth century, his exploitative employer, Shyamrao, and two clerks, Jawdekar and Bawdekar. Trapped between sensuous longings and the sordid reality of their humdrum existence, they seek redemption in make-believe. Layers of space and time interweave and overlap in this powerfully haunting play, in which dreams and fantasy inevitably turn into nightmares.
Begum Barve in the original Marathi was directed by the playwright himself; it has also been performed in Hindi and Gujarati adaptations.
This new edition supplements the text with a critical essay and an not on the songs by URMILA BHIRDIKAR, translator, critic, musicologist, vocalist and Reader, Department of English, Pune University,; and interview wit the playwright by SHUBADA SHELKE, scholar and commentator on Marathi theatre; and a note by AMAL ALLANA, who directed the play in Hindi.
Rs 225 £
9.95 $ 14.95
The three plays in this volume were written and staged between 1986 and 1995, and they focus on three figures who have had a decisive influence on Kannada history and culture--Basavanna, the revolutionary religious genius and saint of 12th century Karnataka; Madaiah the Cobbler, a legendry character who had a great impact on the backward castes, untouchables and tribals of South Karnataka; and Tipu Sultan, the ruler whom the British schemed to defeat and depose. Mahachaitra,
the play centred around the saint Basavanna, created a year-long controversy
in Karnataka in which fundamentalists locked horns with Dalit and leftist
defenders of the text, turning it virtually into a household name.
Price Rs 150
£ 9.95 $ 14.95
Madhu Rye is one of the best known playwrights writing
in Gujarati. His work received wide attention in the early 70s and he
has continued to interest succeeding generations of theatre practitioners
ever since. Of the two plays in this volume, The Terrace (Kumarni
Agashi) is an unsettling expose of repressive sexual morality; while
Tell Me the Name of a Flower (Koi-punn Ek Phool Nu Naam Bolo Tho?)
unravels a murder mystery through the lives of a theatre company. Both
feature amongst the best-known works of contemporary Gujarati drama Rs 150 £
6.95 $ 10.95 The Storyteller in Madhavi [ a play in three acts by
Bhisham Sahni, translated from Hindi by Alok Bhalla] recounts an ancient
tale from the Mahabharata. Munikumar Galav must fulfil his promise to
his guru, Vishvamitra. This is his Duty. Yayati the king-turned-ashramite
gives away his daughter Madhavi to Galav who pleads desperately for assistance.
This is his Duty. And in between these fixed notions of male pride, honour
and commitment lives Madhavi, capable of magically renewing her beauty
and virginity. She must live with many kings, and lose many sons. This
is her Duty. Price Rs 175
£ 6.95 $ 10.95 -an English translation of Komal Swaminathan's famous
Tamil play Thaneer Thaneer- translated by Professor S. Shankar
Rs 250
£ 11.95 $ 17.95 The
women playwrights in this volume focus on the various kinds of violence
and abuse that women face. Sensitive, nuanced texts, together these plays
make up a powerful volume focusing on one of the most important and problematic
issues of our society.
Price Rs 100
£ 7.95 $ 11.95
Hard-hitting, quick-moving, visually striking and very contemporary,
these plays show Bose at his best.
Price Rs 100
£ 7.95 $ 11.95 Mareech, the legend is a cleverly structured, intelligent,
humorous look at the changing forms of exploitation through space and
time, starting with the story of Mareech the demon from the Ramayana,
taking in USA's Vietnam intervention, and coming down to the contemporary
period. Jagannath, adapted from Lu Xun's Chinese tale 'The Story of Ah
Q', ostensibly tells the tale of a simple peasant, but in the process
examines and exposes the subtle ways in which centuries of hierarchical
oppresion mould the psyche of the oppressed.
Price Rs 75
£ 7.95 $ 11.95 Veteran Marathi playwright and Marxist intellectual G.
P. Deshpande turns to India's ancient past to pinpoint the historical
moment of empire in the context of the history of the empire. He sees
in Chandragupta the ideal vessel to carry out his theories of state, and
ruthlessly manipulates his young disciple to fulfill his grand vision
of an all-powerful empire, the first centralized state.
Rs 175
£ 9.95 $ 14.95 G. P.Deshpande is a Marxist scholar, an academic, and
a widely produced and translated playwright. This cycle of three plays
deals with the impact on human beings, and their relationships, of the
collapse of the Communist ideal, and the vacuum left by the loss of belief.
Price Rs 100 £
7.95 $ 11.95 This play by veteran playwright/director Habib Tanvir,
performed by Naya Theatre's Chhatisgarhi folk artists, is a contemporary
Indian classic. This volume contains, along with the translated playscript,
an introduction to Habib Tanvir's work in theatre by theatre scholar and
critic Javed Malick.
Rs 100 £
7.95 $ 11.95 Makarand Sathe has established himself as a playwright
to be reckoned with on the Marathi stage, with a unique brand of wit and
humour that distinguishes his plays from those of other writers.
Makarand Sathe (b. 1957) has been writing for the Marathi
stage for a decade now, and his plays have been produced by leading theatre
groups in Maharashtra. He has received the prestigious Natyadarpan award
for playwriting.
Price Rs 175 £
9.95 $ 14.95 The three plays in this volume illustrate the broad range
of Chandrasekhar Kambar's playwriting.
Celebrated as a poet in his home state of Karnataka,
Kambar's work is imbued with a poetic sensibilty, laced with earthy humour.
Price Rs 75 £
7.95 $ 11.95 K.N. Panikkar has established himself as one of Kerala's
most respected playwrights and theatre directors, working closely with
traditional forms.
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Twist
in the Folktale
Beyond the Land of Hattamala and Scandal in Fairyland
Giving Away the Girl 
Begum Barve
Mahachaitra,
the great Spring and other Plays
Two Plays 
Madhavi
The
Death of Abbie Hoffman
Mr
Sapatnekar's Child and
The
Shadow of the Tiger
The
Right to Rule and