‘Dattani’ work probes tangled attitudes in contemporary India towards communal differences, consumerism and gender . . . a brilliant contribution to Indian drama in English.’ Sahitya Akademi award citation. Jairaj Parekh and his wife Ratna, aging Bharatnatyam dancers, are engaged in finding a substitute mridangam player to accompany their daughter Lata at her performance at a high-profile dance festival. Lata, in the meantime, nervously awaits the meeting between her parents and Viswas, the young man she wishes to marry. When the four meet, and in the conversations and discussions that follow, the fissures in the relationship between Jairaj and Ratna begin to explode into high-strung battles which lead back to their own youth and the tragedy that lies at the heart of their discord. The younger couple have their own issues to contend with: the obvious mismatch between the two sets of parents, the arguments over Lata’s career as a dancer after marriage and most unsettling of all, Lata’ s attempt to balance her parents’ ambition with her own needs and desires.
A brilliant study of human relationships and weaknesses framed by the age-old battle between tradition and youthful rebellion, Dance Like a Man has been hailed as one of the best works of the dramatic imagination in recent times.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mahesh Dattani
Mahesh Dattani, born in Bangalore on 7 August 1958 studied in Baldwin's High School and St. Joseph's College of Arts and Science, Bangalore. He has worked as a copywriter in an advertising firm and subsequently with his father in the family business. His theatre group Playpen was formed in 1984, and he has directed several plays for them, ranging from classical Greek to contemporary works. In 1986, he wrote his first full-length play, Where there's a Will, and from 1995, he has been working full-time in theatre. In 1998, he set up his own theatre studio dedicated to training and showcasing new talents in acting, directing, and stage writing, the first in the country to sepcifically focus on new works. Dattani is also a film-maker and his films have been screened in India and abroad to critical and public acclaim. His film Dance Like a Man has won the award for the Best Picture in English awarded by the National Panorama. In 1998, Dattani won the Sahitya Akademi award for his book of plays final solutions and ther Plays, published by East-West Books Chennai, thus becoming the first English language playwright to win the award. Dattani teaches theatre course at the summer sessions programme of Portland State University, Oregon, USA, and conducts workshops regularly at his studio and elsewhere. He also writes plays for BBC Radio 4. He lives in Bangalore.
There are no reviews yet.