On Theatre

Utpal Dutt (1929–93), playwright, director and actor, an inspiration and role model for the activist theatre person. Whether through the proscenium theatre, street performance, the traditional strolling theatre-in-the-round, or cinema, Dutt tried to take revolutionary theatre to the widest mass of people, with political messages for every turning point in a highly sensitive and rapidly changing political scenario, redefining his relationship with the political leadership again and again, getting into violent confrontations with various forces, being driven underground, and getting jailed in the process. His legacy of plays and other writing remain a valuable chapter in Indian theatre history.

This collection of Dutt’s theatre writings, including the transcript of a round-table on ‘Jatra and Its Relevance’ that he participated in, records the evolution of his theatre sensibility, nurtured on Shakespeare and Communism, Jatra and Sophocles. No play escaping his attention, and no actor or director held sacred, Dutt attacks and analyses, compliments and condemns, venting both his ire and his appreciation with equal gusto, and reveals, in the process, his high expectations not only of his contemporaries but, most importantly, also of himself.