Sign-In
Cart
Stages of Life: Indian Theatre Autobiographies
Paperback
Biographies GeneralTheater History
ISBN13: 9781783080687
Publisher: Anthem Press
Published: Dec 1 2013
Pages: 392
Weight: 1.10
Height: 0.88 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
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, Narayan Prasad Betab and Radheshyam Kathavachak, wrote landmark dramas that ushered in the mythological genre, intertwining politics and religion with popular performance.
These men were schooled not in the classroom but in large theatrical companies run by Parsi entrepreneurs. Their memoirs, replete with anecdote and humor, offer an unparalleled window onto a vanished world, where India's late-colonial vernacular culture and early cinema history come alive. From another perspective, these narratives are as significant to the understanding of the nationalist era as the lives of political leaders or social reformers.
This book includes four substantive chapters on the history of the Parsi theatre, debates over autobiography in the Indian context, strategies for reading autobiography in general, and responses to these specific texts. The apparatus, based on the translator's extensive research, includes notes on personages, performances, texts, vernacular usage, and cultural institutions.
1 different editions
Also available
Also in
Theater History
History Hiding Around Broadway: Backstage Lore, Secrets & Surprises from New York's Famed Theater District
Dvornik, Teale
Hardcover
The Dream Factory: London's First Playhouse and the Making of William Shakespeare
Swift, Daniel
Hardcover
Shakespeare's Margaret: The Dramatic Life of a Warrior Queen
O'Malley, Charles
Stern, Scott W.
Hardcover
Houdini's Library: Inside the Spellbinding Collections of the Great Illusionist
Colleary, Eric
Hardcover
The Viewpoints Book: A Practical Guide to Viewpoints and Composition
Landau, Tina
Bogart, Anne
Paperback
Champions for the Arts: Lessons and Successful Strategies for Engaging Diverse Audiences
Walker-Kuhne, Donna
Paperback
Shakespeare's World: Seeing the Plays Through Elizabethan Eyes
Lubarr, Josh
Goodheart, Rebecca
Krausnick, Dennis
Paperback
Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created Sunday in the Park with George
Lapine, James
Paperback
Staging Blackface in Canada: Public Amusements, Variety Shows, and Racial Acts in an Age of Imitation, 1898-1919
Thompson, Cheryl
Paperback
The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War
Shapiro, James
Hardcover
Currencies of Cruelty: Slavery, Freak Shows, and the Performance Archive
Bainbridge, Danielle
Paperback
The Bird Cage Theater: The Curtain Rises on Tombstone, Arizona's National Treasure
Mihaljevich, Michael Paul
Hardcover
Cocktails with George and Martha: Movies, Marriage, and the Making of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Gefter, Philip
Paperback
Playing to the Gods: Sarah Bernhardt, Eleonora Duse, and the Rivalry That Changed Acting Forever
Rader, Peter
Paperback
Free for All: Joe Papp, the Public, and the Greatest Theater Story Every Told
Papp, Joseph
Turan, Kenneth
Paperback
Playhouse to Powerhouse: Locating Black Power Women and their Movement in the Black Theatre
Goldmann, Kerry
Paperback
Playhouse to Powerhouse: Locating Black Power Women and their Movement in the Black Theatre
Goldmann, Kerry
Hardcover
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Nineteenth-Century America: Discourse and Criticism
Rowland, Herbert
Hardcover
Genos Dikanikon: Amateur and Professional Speech in the Courtrooms of Classical Athens
Bers, Victor
Paperback
Undesirability and Her Sisters: Black Women's Visual Work and the Ethics of Representation
Barber, Tiffany E.
Paperback
Theatre/Theory/Theatre: The Major Critical Texts from Aristotle and Zeami to Soyinka and Havel
Gerould, Daniel
Paperback
Cocktails with George and Martha: Movies, Marriage, and the Making of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Gefter, Philip
Hardcover
The Second City: The Essentially Accurate History
Patinkin, Sheldon
Kozak, Liz
City, The Second
Hardcover
Moment Work: Tectonic Theater Project's Process of Devising Theater
Pitts McAdams, Barbara
Kaufman, Moises
Paperback
Les Misérables: The Story So Far of the World's Longest Running Musical
Palmer, Martyn
Nightingale, Benedict
Wolf, Matt
Hardcover
Chasing the Sun: Staging Black Life and Belonging in California's Bay Area
Thompson, Wendy M.
Paperback
Something Wonderful Right Away: The Birth of Second City--America's Greatest Comedy Theater
Sweet, Jeffrey
Paperback
Listening for America: Inside the Great American Songbook from Gershwin to Sondheim
Kapilow, Rob
Hardcover
Kissing the Mask: Beauty, Understatement and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater
Vollmann, William T.
Paperback
Mediatic Shakespeare: The Dynamics of Orality, Script and Print in the Plays and Poems
Cavell, Richard
Hardcover
Collaboration in Theatre: A Practical Guide for Designers and Directors
Roznowski, Rob
Domer, K.
Paperback
The Untold Stories of Broadway: Tales from the World's Most Famous Theaters
Tepper, Jennifer Ashley
Paperback
Artistic Collaboration, Exile, and Brecht: A New Intellectual History, 1900-1950
Hollander, Katherine
Hardcover
The Dream Factory: London's First Playhouse and the Making of William Shakespeare
Swift, Daniel
Paperback
The Long Revolution: Sixty Years on the Frontlines of a New American Theater
Fichandler, Zelda
Paperback
Sistren Theatre Collective and the Politics of Space in Jamaica: Woman Talawa
Smith, Karina
Hardcover
Currencies of Cruelty: Slavery, Freak Shows, and the Performance Archive
Bainbridge, Danielle
Hardcover
Making Pagans: Theatrical Practice and Comparative Religion in Early Modern England
Kuhn, John
Hardcover
Japanese No Masks: With 300 Illustrations of Authentic Historical Examples
Perzynski, Friedrich
Paperback
A Revolution in Three Acts: The Radical Vaudeville of Bert Williams, Eva Tanguay, and Julian Eltinge
Hajdu, David
Carey, John
Paperback
A History of Leadville Theater: Opera Houses, Variety Acts and Burlesque Shows
Scanlon, Gretchen
Hardcover
¡A Teatro Camaradas!: Dramaturgia militante y política de masas en Colombia (1965-1975)
Parra Salazar, Mayra Natalia
Paperback
Shakespeare's Compassion: Emotion and the Classics on the Early Modern Stage
Refskou, Anne Sophie
Hardcover
Pioneering Theatre-in-the-Round: The Victoria Theatre in Stoke-on-Trent, 1962-1986
Walker, Rachel
Hardcover
Boom Chicago Presents the 30 Most Important Years in Dutch History
Rosenfeld, Pep
Moskos, Andrew
Hardcover
Harold Pinter, Fascism, and Outrage: Aesthetic and Moral Implications
Russell, Dennis Eugene
Hardcover
F*ck the Army!: How Soldiers and Civilians Staged the GI Movement to End the Vietnam War
Goss, Lindsay
Paperback
New Directions in Tarot: Decoding the Tarot Illustrations of Pamela Colman Smith
Martin, Scott
Hardcover
Artists in Exile: How Refugees from Twentieth-Century War and Revolution Transformed the American Performing Arts
Horowitz, Joseph
Paperback
Theatergeschichte Osterreichs / Theatergeschichte Vorarlbergs. Von Den Anfangen Bis Zum Beginn Des 20. Jahrhunderts
Fuhrich, Fritz
Paperback
Up Your Ass: Or from the Cradle to the Boat or the Big Suck or Up from the Slime
Solanas, Valerie
Paperback
Theatergeschichte Osterreichs / Burgenland / Das Alte Volksschauspiel Des Burgenlandes
Schmidt, Leopold
Paperback
New York Theatre Walks: Seven Historical Tours from Times Square to Greenwich Village and Beyond
Kissel, Howard
Paperback
The Rise and Fall of the Royal Shakespeare Company: An Illustrated History
Trowbridge, Simon
Paperback
Theatre Work: Reimagining the Labor of Theatrical Production
Robin, Natalie
Clements Cotton, Brídín
Paperback
The Stage of Her Life: Conversations with Actress Lea Koenig on Theater and Her Life
Goldberg, Yaniv Shimon
Paperback
Waltzing in the Dark: African American Vaudeville and Race Politics in the Swing Era
Na, Na
Paperback