A political play staging the Nazi takeover of Germany with an eye on India.

Although Utpal Dutt is acknowledged as a trailblazer of post-Independence Indian theater, English readers have not had access to the range and wealth of his drama. Barricade is a political play that stages the Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933 with an eye on India. Today, the surge to power of far-right parties and fundamentalist fanaticism across the world means that the co-option of democracy and civil society that led to Nazi fascism can happen again—or indeed has already happened—granting Barricade its immediate urgency. Equipped with an introduction analyzing its historical context, this translation of Barricade is also a very rare product in dramatic literature, collating both the printed original as well as a documented performance of the production directed by Dutt.

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.