The Actress in the Public Theatres of Calcutta

The book is on the world of Bengali theatre in the latter half of the nineteenth century that saw a number of amateur and private theatre groups spawn. It discusses the emergence of the actresses on stage in 1873 and their performance in the public theatres of Calcutta. It deals with their training and their career as well as attempts by many of them to leave the stage and have a respectable family and security like other women. It takes up their relationship with their male patrons and mentors and their attempts to speak with an independent voice, their fight for their identity and the manner in which they were viewed by the audience. It shows how the ‘fallen’ women who had been rejected by respectable society acquired popularity as actresses once they had taken to it to earn their living.