Dramatists of Indian Writing in English have scaled the length and breadth of the experimentation in dramaturgy of India during and after independence. To fathom the depths of Indian Drama in English certain characteristic features are to be kept in mind. Firstly, the Indian Writings in English during Modern Age articulate the budding and the already present writers as well as the influence of Existentialism, Globalisation, Surrealism, Dadaism, Magic Realism and the Post Colonial issues. India had been under the colonial shackles for a time period of three hundred years and as a matter of fact the colonial language and culture had cast its direct shadow on the Indian literary venues. Drama in Indian English can thus be summed up as the congregation of the various social and political nexus. Post-colonial English literature in India works through the process of "writing back", "re-writing" and "re-reading". This delineates the rendering of well-known literature from the point of view of the formerly colonised. Indian English Literature (IEL), as was seen before, pertains to that body of work by writers in India, who pen in the English language and whose native or co-native language could be one of the several regional languages of India.
However as the ship that anchored itself to the port of Indian Writings In English at first started the journey with translation literature. Indian Drama in English translation has made bold innovations and fruitful experiments in terms of both thematic concerns and technical virtuosities. It has been increasingly turning to history, legend, myth and folk lore tapping their springs of vitality and vocal chords of popularity with splendid results. Thus regional drama paved the way for National theatre into which all streams of theatrical art seem to gain coverage. The plays written under the Pre-Independence and Post Independence phase were originally written in English. Among the plays written in English there are few ones which were at first written in the regional language and subsequently translated into English by the authors themselves. Thus they are transcreations and not merely translations. Rabindranath Tagore, Mohan Rakesh, Badal Sircar, Vijay Tendulkar and Girish Karnad have remained the most representative of Indian English Drama not only in Marathi, Kannada, Bengali, and Hindi but also on pan Indian level.
With Vijay Tendulkar`s plays translated and staged in other regional languages the plays received thespian recognition. He ventured for experimental theatre which can be interpreted as a synonym for "modern" and "Western." Both Tendulkar and other younger playwrights wanted to give theatre "a new form" and experiment with all aspects of it, including content, acting, decor and audience communication. In his early one-act plays, he used the techniques common in contemporary European and American theatre. Most of this plays deal with the social life in the post-colonial era. This was an age when human beings were exploited, women were probably the worst sufferers and the social order was a victim of communal violence and political unrest.
The plays included in the first period are `Shrimant`, `Manus Nawache Bet`, `Ashi Pakhare Yeti`, `Saree Ga Saree`, `Mi Jinkalo`, `Mi Haralo`, `Shantata`, `Court Chalu Ahe`, and `Madhalya Bhinti`. The plays are coloured by the pangs of financial strains, problem of unemployment, and inadequate income of those with jobs, problems of housing and high rent, marriage and oppression of women and so on. The stark realism of his work is further highlighted by his use of humour and satire, with telling effect. He had an uncanny ability to develop a complete image of the characters with relative ease through few but sound details. His `Shrimant`(1955) deals with the familiar theme of the conflict between the rich and the poor in a capitalist society. It also explores the predicament of a lower-middle-class family with the problem of premarital pregnancy. Both Shrimant and the subsequent `Gharate Amuche Chhan `deal with the corrupt, money-driven, and selfish lives of the rich who are morally lacking. Many of his early plays are fairly conventional in dramatic form and style, but in his later ones he has experimented with both, though not in an artificial manner. In `Shantata` and `Court Chalu Ahe`, he had interwoven the rehearsal of a play and a real life story to produce intense dramatic encounters where reality and fiction become difficult to separate.
The works of Vijay Tendulkar poignantly portrays the human sufferings and they also reflect the author`s compassion and respect for the human beings. The plays in the second period break away from the setting of the middle class and delve deep into the socio-political and historical realm. `Gidhade` (1971), `Sakharam Binder` (1972), `Ghashiram Kotwal` (1973), `Bhalyakaka` (1974), `Bhau Murarrao` (1975), and `Bebi` (1975) are some of the plays written during this period. They are felt to be better conceived than those written in the first period. Ghashiram Kotwal, his most popular play, was published in 1973 but it was performed in December 1972. This play, a dance and musical display on one level, is a bitter commentary on the hypocrisy of the dominant castes and classes in society, on another level. Its characters are historical figures, and it is set in the Peshwa period but it is not a historical play. It is a fictional account of the social circumstances that can create characters like Ghashiram. The theme of the play, the dishonesty of the orthodox Brahmins of Pune and impoverished Ghashiram`s willingness to offer his daughter to the demands of lecherous Nana Phadanavis, created a storm of social protest in Pune. Tendulkar`s play makes use of chorus as well as kirtan, a folk music form used primarily to narrate religious-mythical stories, with incisive effect.
Girish Karnad made his playwriting debut with Yayati in 1961. This play was about reworking this Mahabharata legend about responsibility." Tughlaq" in 1964 was inspired by Albert Camus`s Caligula, shot to fame as it made history contemporaneous by reading the dilemmas of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru`s period into Tughlaq`s rule in 1325-51. Hayavadana in 1971 took its leitmotif from an ancient tale in the Sanskrit language -Vetalapancavimsatika retold by Thomas Mann in The Transposed Heads. This was of the dichotomy between mind and body, and the problem of completeness, using folk elements such as masks and the supernatural. Anjumallige i.e. `Fearing Jasmine` in 1977, recalling Edward Albee`s `Who`s Afraid of Virginia Woolf`, has a foreign setting and deals with incest. Hittina hunja i.e. `Dough-Cock` in 1982 describes Queen Amrutamatis sexual attraction for an ugly mahout, the theme borrowed from Janna`s Yasodhara charite, a Jain poem. In Naga-mandala in 1988, Karnad gave a Freudian interpretation to a folk tale about a woman`s love for a cobra that impersonates her husband. Tale-danda in 1990 demythologizes the life of Basaveswara, the poet, mystic, and social revolutionary of twelfth-century Karnataka. Agni mattu male i.e. `The Fire and the Rain` in 1994 depicts the story of Yavakrita in the Ramayana.
Girish Karnad made his name as a lead actor in Kannada art films like Samskara i.e. `Funeral Rites` in 1970 and Vamsha vriksha i.e. `Family Tree`. The latter one he co-directed in 1971. He did stage productions of Sophocles`s Oedipus and Kambar`s Jokumaraswami in 1972, and Hindi movies like Shyam Benegal`s Nishant i.e. `Night`s End` in 1975 and Manthan i.e. `Churning` in 1976. He also acted in Basu Chatterjee`s Swami i.e. `Husband` in 1977, and Jabbar Patel`s Subah i.e. `Dawn` in 1981.
Mahesh Dattani wrote his first full-length play, Where There`s a Will, on family inheritances, in 1986 followed by Dance like a Man in 1989 on the problems faced by a male dancer. He directed and acted in both, then directed Bravely Fought the Queen in 1991 in Bombay. Meanwhile Alyque Padamsee had directed his third play, Tara in 1990, a touching domestic drama, and invited him to script a work on communalism. The product, Final Solution, was rejected by the Deccan Herald Festival in Bengaluru for dealing with a sensitive issue, though they had sponsored his first two productions. Playpen finally staged it in 1993. The delicate theme led him to create perhaps too perfect a Hindu-Muslim equilibrium, almost consciously free of any perceivable bias.
Gay presence in Dattani`s work increases with the play Do the Needful in 1997. This was written for BBC Radio 4, the plot centres on the negotiations for an arranged marriage between Alpesh, a Gujarati man, and Lata, a South Indian Kannada woman. As the play progresses it is revealed that the woman is not agreeable to the marriage because she loves Salim, a Muslim man, while the prospective groom is in love with a man named Trilok. Although she tells Alpesh about her love for another man, Alpesh keeps quiet about his homosexual relationship. Alpesh`s homosexuality is revealed to Lata when she surprises him and the gardener of her family having sex in the cowshed, just as she is about to run away to Salim. At first horrified, she subsequently decides that the best way to deal with the situation is to marry Alpesh, so that they can lead separate sexual lives yet keep up the appearance of a happy couple. This is a clear example of a common compromise in a society that has criminalized non-procreative sex since 1862.
Badal Sircar wrote his first serious play, Evam Indmjit, in 1963. Its publication and premiere in 1965 attracted wide notice for its striking originality and themes of absurdist meaninglessness, identity crisis, and social conformity. It is perhaps the one contemporary Bengali drama most translated into other Indian languages. While working in Nigeria, Sircar authored in quick succession several plays which secured his reputation. Some of the names can be mentioned as Baki itihas or "Remaining History" in 1965, Pralap i.e. "Delirium" in 1966, Tringsha shatabdi i.e. `Thirtieth Century` in 1966, and Pagla ghora or `Mad Horse` in 1967. All of these were premiered by Bohurupee, followed by Shesh nei i.e. "There`s No End" in 1969. His concern was the pointlessness of existence, compounded by a sense of associative guilt and responsibility in disturbed persons. These persons belong to the urban middle class in a world of increasing violence and inhumanity.
Indian Dramatists in English during thus depict the issues related to society. Though; it is mandatory to be acquainted with the fact that the writings pursue either the classical genre of the modern age or adjust themselves with the contemporaneity of the contemporary age.
