Manikin plays: two contemporary Indian plays

<p>The book includes two contemporary Indian plays, production photographs and selected studies on the plays. In the introduction, the playwright discusses the historical, literary and critical aspects of Indian play writing. The spectrum of Indian playwrights shows a range of styles and rare combination of literature, performance traditions and socio-political concerns. Indian playwrights position themselves within and against Indian history, and the mythological inheritance, attempting to read these against the political and social issues of contemporary India (Yarrow, 2007). Reframing questions of sexuality, of gender roles, of power and political authority, of marginalization and oppression are common themes that many playwrights foreground as most prevalent issues. The two plays in the collection reflect on the issues of sexuality and gender politics widespread in Indian social set-up. The Stone Idol retells the story of Buddha through the experience of an actress in a theatre group. The play addresses the complexities of identities in the play exploring the mythical story of Buddha. The Beauty Parlour shows the contradictions of a middle class girl who is victimized by the male gaze in an urban economy where the individual self and its bodily representations are constantly re-modified by the growing market. The play is set in an Indian urban metropolis where the central character of the play lives a life with tremendous pressure of the day-to-day life. The female body becomes central to the play in many ways: the existence of the central character in the play is only imagined and told by another character, the beautician who is the only character in the monologue who runs the parlour. The plays in the proposed collection not only show the personal and social issues underlying Indian society, but also offering an example of contemporary playwriting in India.</p>