Author: Vijay Tendulkar
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2002
Language: English
Pages: 357
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0195637364
Description
Each of the five most famous plays of India's finest playwright contained in this selection has its own distinct character and message. Together they offer a rare and very powerful insight into middle class India, and how it thinks.
Vijay Tendulkar has been in the vanguard of Indian theatre for almost forty years. This prolific writer has twenty-eight full-length plays to his credit, many of which have been published in major Indian languages besides Marathi.
This anthology contains five of Tendulkar's most significant plays. All the plays highlight the complexity of human relationships, all contain a latent critique of modern Indian society, mainly middle class and lower middle class; and in all of them women play significant roles in the plot. Yet each has its own distinct character and message.
'Kamla' is an indictment of the success-oriented male society in which women find themselves mere stepping stones in men's achievements. 'Silence! The Court is in Session' combines social criticism with the tragedy of an individual victimized by society. 'Sakharam Binder' explores the complications of human nature, two necessary components of which are sex and violence; and 'The vultures;' depicts the economic and moral degeneration of a family. 'Encounter in Umbugland' is a political satire.
REVIEWS:
Reading five of his plays at a stretch leaves one both spellbound and shell-shocked . . . Like all great playwrights Tendulkar is a gripping story-teller. - - Independent
Contents
Introduction by ARUNDHATI BANERJEE
Kamala
translated by PRIYA ADARKAR
Silence! The Court is in Session
translated by PRIYA ADARKAR
Sakharam Binder
translated by KUMUD MEHTA AND SHANTA GOKHALE
The Vultures
translated by PRIYA ADARKAR
Encounter in Umbugland
translated by PRIYA ADARKAR