Mahesh Dattani’s Plays: Critical Perspectives

This critical anthology interrogates the aesthetics of Mahesh Dattani’s plays, embedded in his deft constructions of the contemporary, urban middle class people of India.  What comes sharply under the scanner is Dattani’s notation of gender and class discriminations, familial affiliations and discords, communal politics and violence, as well as the dilemmas and tensions of the differently able, the transgendered, the gay and the lesbian.  Equally does this study critique Dattani’s use of the (now) legitimized Indian English and its subtle variations, explorations of functional stage-spaces, enhancement of audience-participation, re-invention of text as performance, and his deep involvement in the issues and concerns of his drama without sounding didactic or prescriptive.