Logo

Synopsis Mahesh Dattani is much more than India’s best-known playwright. He is a director, writer and dancer all rolled into one. Writing for the sheer pleasure of communicating with his audience, Dattani is the first Indian playwright writing in English to have won the Sahitya Akademi award. Moored in living social contexts, his plays address questions of sexual identity, religious faith, family ties and gender-issues that are of immense significance to contemporary urban India. Collected Plays Volume Two: Screen, Stage and Radio Plays showcases Dattani’s talent as a writer and director and his wide thematic and stylistic range. The ten plays in this volume include Thirty Days in September, performed extensively in India and abroad to commercial success and critical acclaim, the radio plays aired on BBC Radio and the screenplays of Mango Souffle, Dance Like a Man and Morning Raga, premiered at the Cairo Film Festival and winner of the award for best artistic contribution. With a general introduction by Jeremy Mortimer of BBC Radio and notes on individual plays by actors like Lillete Dubey and Shabana Azmi, the plays in this collection provide fascinating insights into the human psyche and reveal just how caught up we are in the complications and contradictions of our values and assumptions.