The Theatre of Conscience

Contents: Introduction. 1. The Tale of Hekim-Shaheb. 2. Honey from a broken hive. 3. The shadow palace. Appendix: 'That Tiny Cube of Space': An interview with the playwright.

"The Palace of Shadows (Chhayar Prashad; set in the decadence of the Mauryan Empire during the times of Bindusar and the scripture-toting Brahmans) and The Tale of Hekim-shaheb (Galpo Hekimshaheb; set in nineteenth-century Bengal against the backdrop of the Permanent Settlement Act and the revenue-extracting British and exploitative zamindars, talukdars and chepattanidars), cast in the genre of the historical play, are addressed from within the crisis of our times--the rise of religious fundamentalism, corruption and misrule. Honey From a Broken Hive (Chak Bhanga Modhu; written during the crisis-ridden period of the Naxal Movement in Bengal) addresses a crisis of another kind-of representation. Chance news of a man dying of snakebite at the Ojha's house in a village in the Sunderbans triggered off the writing of this play in which Manoj Mitra shows violence within a community of extreme poverty as erupting from forces that cannot be contained within an ideology or a rationalized will to act.

This volume also contains a detailed introduction by the translator and an indepth interview with the playwright."