An authoritative perspective on the evolution and politics of theater performance in and beyond India.

In Centrestage, theater scholar Ananda Lal presents a compelling collection of essays encompassing over thirty years of research, reflection, and firsthand engagement with performance. From the emergence of Indian drama in English in the mid-nineteenth century to the diverse and sometimes contentious plays of the twenty-first century, Lal explores a two-hundred-year trajectory of Indian and intercultural theater with clarity and insight. The first part of the volume examines Indian theater history, proceeding from the colonial era to the contemporary scene in Kolkata and current theater pedagogy in India. The second part delves into the provocative world of intercultural theater, interrogating global academic representations of Indian performance and the work of such celebrated directors as Peter Brook and Tim Supple.

Ananda Lal is a theater specialist and a former professor of English at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, where he also directed the university theater. His books include Rabindranath Tagore: Three Plays and the Oxford Companion to Indian Theatre. He directs Writers Workshop, Kolkata, and runs Kolkatatheatre.com.

Preface
Part I
1. Indian Drama in English: The Beginnings
2. A Historiography of Modern Indian Theatre [c.1850–1950]
3. Four Plays of the 1970s: Utpal Dutt, Chandrasekhar Kambar, H. Kanhailal, Habib Tanvir
4. State of the Art in One Metro Today: 21st-Century Theatre in Kolkata
5. The Curtain Rises: Theatre in University Curricula of India

Part II
6. Interculturalism
7. Interrogating the Representation of India
8. “All theatre lives by surprise”: Peter Brook’s Mahabharata
9. “We the globe can compass soon”: Tim Supple’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream