Collected Plays Volume 1 [Paperback]

This a collection of four history plays by the eminent author late Girish Karnad. The volume offersKarnad's readers and critics an opportunity for the kind ofdiscerning assessment of his drama that he has favoured andpracticed for several decades.Th e troubled reign of a fourteenth-century sultan of Delhi helps dramatizethe crisis of secular nationhood in post-Independence India. A twelft hcenturyfolktale about 'transposed heads' off ers a path-breaking model fora quintessentially 'Indian' theatre in postcolonial times. The folktale abouta woman with a snake lover explores gender relations within marriage.Individual human sexuality meets the historical debate on violence in Indianculture. The plays in this volume span roughly the fi rst half of the career ofGirish Karnad, one of India's pre-eminent playwrights.Th e three-volume set of Karnad's Collected Plays brings together Englishversions of his important works. Each volume contains an extensiveintroduction by theatre scholar Aparna Bhargava Dharwadker, Professorof English and Interdisciplinary Th eatre Studies, University of Wisconsin,Madison. Th e introductions trace the literary and theatrical evolution ofKarnad's work over six decades and position it in the larger context ofmodern Indian drama. In addition, they comment on Karnad's place as authorand translator in a multilingual performance culture and the relation of hisplaywriting to his work in the popular media.Each of these volumes serves as a collector's item, making Karnad's worksaccessible to theatre lovers worldwide.CONTENTSIntroduction by Aparna Bhargava Dharwadker viiTUGHLAQ 1HAYAVADANA 101BALI: THE SACRIFICE 187N AGA-MANDALA (Play with a Cobra) 243AppendicesAppendix 1: Note on Tughlaq, Hayavadana, andNaga-Mandala by Girish Karnad 301Appendix 2: Note on Bali: The Sacrificeby Girish Karnad 316Girish Karnad,Collected Plays Vol 1, author, actor, ex-OUP editorGirish Karnad, a playwright, film-maker, and actor, writes in Kannada and has translatl“