Author: Mahesh Elkunchwar
Translator(s): Shanta Gokhale
Publisher: Seagull Books
Year: 2004
Language: English
Pages: 252
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8170461596
Description
The Wada Trilogy has had an interesting history - in its writing and reading alike. What had looked like a close and authentic delineation of the decay and disintegration of the feudal extended family in Wada Chirebandi (translated as Old Stone Mansion), calls for a different reading now, when the Trilogy appears as a whole, ten years after the appearance of Yugant, the last play of the corpus.
With this trilogy, Mahesh Elkunchwar achieves a feat unique to playwriting in this country: developing a cycle which moves between many registers to unfold the evolving history of a family in present-day India mirroring the social and cultural shifts and changes that mark the twentieth century.
From Old Stone Mansion, to The Pool, to Apocalypse, we follow the fortunes and struggles of the Deshpandes of Dharangaon, once highly respected and well-off landed gentry, now caught between the memory of their own genteel past and the financial penury of the present. As members of several generations come to terms with their past and future in drastically different ways, we see an image of India negotiating its way through 'modernity'. This new edition supplements the text with a new introduction and an interview with the playwright by scholar and critic Samik Bandyopadhyay.
Contents
INTRODUCTION
Samik Bandyopadhyay
The Playwright in Conversation
With Samik Bandyopadhyay
Old Stone Mansion
(Wada Chirebandi)
The Pond
(Manga Talyakathi)
Apocalypse
Yugant
Appendices
A. Introduction to the fist Seagull edition
Samik B