Dwijendra Lal Roy was a renowned playwright of Bengali theatre. He was the son of a Diwan in Krishnanagar in Nadia district. Born in 1863, he obtained an MA in English before studying agriculture in England. Back home in 1886, he joined the civil services, retiring in 1913. His love for theatre began in school. The naturalness and wit of farces attracted him, but their vulgarity put him off. Similarly, lack of poetic fervour in drama deterred him. In England he saw productions by Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, which, coupled with his intense reading of Shakespeare, Kalidasa, and Bhavabhuti, fired his dramatic imagination.

To begin with, Dwijendra Lal Roy concentrated on poetic plays but gradually moved towards prose, particularly after Rana Pratap in 1905. Yet he admitted that though realistic dialogues were his ideal, his penchant for the poetic works often turned his prose into verse. The range of his nearly twenty plays is indeed amazing, from social farces to musical drama. His serious works cover mythological, historical, and social themes. The historical drama caught the fancy of theatregoers. The names can be mentioned as Rana Pratap, Nurjahan in 1908, Mewar-patan i.e. `Tall of Mewar` in 1908, Shahjahan in 1909, Chandragupta in 1911. These not only coincided with the nationalist movement in Bengal, but also moulded it to a great extent. Mughal India with its court intrigues fascinated Roy. The high pitch of patriotic emotions found expression mostly through characters invented according to the probability of the historical situation.

Roy`s songs and music in particular lent his plays an extra edge. Sita in 1908 and Bhishma in 1914 stand out among his mythological drama. Ek ghare or `Ostracized` in 1889, Biraha or `Separation` in 1895, Tryahasparsha i.e. `Triple Lunar Conjunction` in 1900, Punarjanma i.e. `Rebirth` in 1911, and the infamous travesty of Tagore, Anandabiday i.e. `Farewell to Happiness` in 1912 are his major farces. He was not an insider to the performatory world yet his scripts provided succour to Bengali theatre whenever the repertoire ran short of new works. If popularity is a yardstick, at least half a dozen of his plays belong to the living tradition of Bengali theatre. Dwijendra Lal Roy died in 1913.