History Plays

A history play is a dramatic work where the events of the plot are either partially or entirely drawn from people and events of the past. It is also considered a theatrical genre. William Shakespeare ...

The Cenci

The Cenci -A Tragedy in Five Acts is a verse drama in five acts by Percy Bysshe Shelley written in the summer of 1819 and inspired by a real Italian family, the House of Cenci and, in particular, Beat...

Naga-Mandala

The play Naga-Mandala is based on the two oral stories from Karnataka that the playwright Girish Karnad heard from his mentor, Professor A K Ramanujan. Karnad through the play exposes the exploitation...

Sophoclean Drama

Sophocles was an ancient Greek playwright and the second of the 3 greatest Greek writers of tragedy with Aeschylus and Euripides. He is known best for what he wrote about Oedipus, the mythological fig...

Hayavadana

Hayavadana, the play by Girish Karnad, tells the story of two friends who are in love with the same woman and who accidentally swap heads. A comedy ending in tragedy, the narrative also tells the stor...

The Dear Departed

William Stanley Houghton was an English dramatist who was a prominent member of a group of playwrights known as the Manchester School of Dramatics. He was influenced strongly by Ibsen. Houghton's play...

The Origin of Drama

Drama is a form of literature intended to be performed by actors and written as prose or verse dialogue. In Western culture, it is one of the three genres developed by the Greeks: drama, epic and (lyr...

A Critique of Gender Discrimination

Vijay Tendulkar’s Silence! The Court is in Session is a critique of gender discrimination in patriarchy and the women’s fight against the injustice done to her. He represents the problems faced by ind...

Antigone, the Classic

Classical works of literature usually share a common element: a memorable main character. Classics feature central characters with vivid, distinct personalities and strong points of view about the wor...

From Transience to Permanence

Rabindranath Tagore’s Chitra is a drama on the theme of true love. This lyrical play is a work of supreme art that has immense use of symbols and poetical language. Tagore is known for his aesthetic a...