The nautanki performances of northern India entertain their audiences with often ribald and profane stories. Rooted in the peasant society of pre-modern India, this theater vibrates with lively dancing, pulsating drumbeats, and full-throated singing. In Grounds for Play, Kathryn Hansen draws on field research to describe the different elements of nautanki performance: music, dance, poetry, popular story lines, and written texts. She traces the social history of the form and explores the play of meanings within nautanki narratives, focusing on the ways important social issues such as...

By the end of the nineteenth century, Western-style playhouses were found in every Indian city. Professional drama troupes held crowds spellbound with their spectacular productions. From this colorful world of entertainment come the autobiographies in this book. The life-stories of a quartet of early Indian actors and poet-playwrights are here translated into English for the first time.

The most famous, Jayshankar Sundari, was a female impersonator of the highest order. Fida Husain Narsi also played women's parts, until gaining great fame for his role as a Hindu saint. Two others,...

By the end of the nineteenth century, Western-style playhouses were found in every Indian city. Professional drama troupes held crowds spellbound with their spectacular productions. From this colorful world of entertainment come the autobiographies in this book. The life-stories of a quartet of early Indian actors and poet-playwrights are here translated into English for the first time.

The most famous, Jayshankar Sundari, was a female impersonator of the highest order. Fida Husain Narsi also played women's parts, until gaining great fame for his role as a Hindu saint. Two others,...