Women Centre Stage: The Dramatist and the Play

ISBN-13: 9780415563147 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 364 str.

Poile Sengupta

Opis

This selection of seven contemporary plays explores a wide range of issues — familial, social, mythological, political — with women centre stage. The plays are distinct from each other in structure, theme and style, but are bound together by a common thread — the position and role of women in family, social and political systems. Issues such as sexual abuse, in-law relationships, the trauma of ageing, the struggle for women’s empowerment, love and passion, desire and revenge, and dynastic politics are discussed through the varying perspectives of a number of characters, bringing an immediacy and urgency to the subjects under consideration.

What is significant about the plays is that they highlight the manipulation of the English language resulting with the introduction of an ‘Indian’ syntax. Multilingualism is used to offset the so-called ‘westernisation’ that has been the by-product of the systematic globalisation of ‘third world’ countries. While the plays are meant to be staged, they are also very reader-friendly and will be entertaining as well as educative for the general reader.

Spis treści

Preface and Acknowledgements -- Introduction by Shashi Deshpande -- Mangalam -- Inner Laws -- Keats Was A Tuber -- Alipha -- Thus Spake Shoorpanakha, So Said Shakuni -- Samara's Song -- About the Author.

O autorze

Poile Sengupta is a playwright and a writer for children. She has been lecturer at the University of Delhi, India and a columnist for a magazine and two national newspapers.