Globalization, Nationalism and the Text of ’kichaka-Vadha’: The First English Translation of the Marathi Anticolonial Classic, with a Historical Analy

In addition to providing the first English translation of ’Kichaka-Vadha’, this volume offers the most detailed scholarly analysis to date of the anticolonial Marathi classic, drawing on a comprehensive range of archival documents.

The documentary material comes from colonial-era police, judicial, administrative, legislative, and newspaper sources. The commentary provides a broad overview of the formation of the modern Marathi theatre as well as a close reading of ’Kichaka-Vadha’ itself. It illuminates the major events and personalities alluded to in the play and highlights the dramaturgic strategies used to advance a radical political agenda.

The play attracted immense audiences at the height of the Independence movement in early-twentieth-century India, making it extraordinarily influential, both politically and theatrically. Numerous playwrights sought to emulate its successful nationalist strategies and produced a significant body of political theatre in colonial India, while British authorities undertook several measures to minimize their impact.

This study of how anticolonial plays operated in an Indian context encourages fruitful comparisons with the resistance strategies employed by plays in other Asian and African countries facing various colonial mechanisms of regulation and suppression of public performances.

Rakesh H. Solomon teaches in the Department of Theatre and Drama and the India Studies Program at Indiana University Bloomington. He is the author of ’Albee in Performance’ (Indiana University Press, 2010) and has published widely on both American theatre as well as South Asian theatre.