Abstract
India has been a great pole of attraction for both colonial and postcolonial literature. Postcolonial drama has also shown an equal fascination with this huge and versatile Asiatic land, as reflected in Marguerite Duras’s India Song (1974) and Manjula Padmanabhan’s Harvest (1997). Despite the cultural difference between their authors and the 20-years’ gap in their writing, the two plays are comparable on various thematic and aesthetic issues. They are both narratives of chaos, violence, frustration and despair, dealing with slippery and disembodied subjectivities, which point to mortality and ultimately death. The atmosphere of distancing from reality and the process from gradual disappearance to total absence are achieved through voices off, fictionalization or virtuality, while scopophilia is also enhanced both as a dramatic device and as a trope of audience reception. However, the stance and the mood of the writing are radically different in the two plays: nonchalance, nostalgia and postcolonial melancholia in the French play; biting satire and political urgency in the Indian play. Despite the hybrid identity and the cosmopolitanism of the two women dramatists, it becomes obvious that in the contemporary situation of global politics and transnational capitalism the position of the western writer is still more advantageous for the scope of the writing itself and its reception, whereas the 3rd world writer is still writing under a state of emergency and his/her work is perceived under the same restrictive circumstances.
About the author
Works Cited
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Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- What Narrative? What Dissent?: Refractive Visions of India in M. Duras’s India Song and M. Padmanabhan’s Harvest
- The Political with a Small p: A Re-evaluation of Brian Friel’s The Freedom of the City
- ‘Gar O’Donnell and the Philadelphia’: Traditional Song and ‘The Irish Showband’ in Brian Friel’s Philadelphia, Here I Come! (1964)
- Non-Productive Expenditure and Sam Shepard’s States of Shock: A Performance of Waste
- Sarah Kane’s Blasted – Genesis of the Subject
- “Theatre Matters”: Discovering the True Self in Terrence McNally’s Dedication
- Asyntactic Contact with Fleshless Words: Con/tactile Aesth/Ethics in The Castle
- Wendy Aarons & Theresa J. May(eds.).Readings in Performance and Ecology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 256 pp., $59.49.
- Chris Megson. Modern British Playwriting: The 1970s. London: Methuen Drama, 2012, xii + 299 pp., $90.00 (hardback), $27.95 (paperback), $26.99 (PDF ebook). Jane Milling. Modern British Playwriting: The 1980s. London: Methuen Drama, 2012, xii + 313 pp., $90.00 (hardback), $27.95 (paperback), $26.99 (PDF ebook). Aleks Sierz. Modern British Playwriting: The 1990s. London: Methuen Drama, 2012. X + 277 pp., $90.00 (hardback), $27.95 (paperback), $26.99 (PDF ebook).
- Elaine Aston and Geraldine Harris.A Good Night Out for the Girls: Popular Feminisms in Contemporary Theatre and Performance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 218 pp.
- Ulrike Behlau-Dengler. Zakhor! Remembering the British-Jewish Experience in British-Jewish Drama after 1945, CDE Studies 21, Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2011, 492 pp., € 48.50.
- Lilian Chambers & Eamonn Jordan (eds.). The Theatre of Conor McPherson. ‘Right beside the Beyond’. Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2012, 309 pp., € 44.99
- Frances Babbage. Re-visioning Myth: Modern and Contemporary Drama by Women. New York: Manchester UP, 2011, x + 261 pp., $85.50.
- Victor Merriman. ‘Because we are poor’: Irish Theatre in the 1990s. Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2011, 250 pp., € 20.00.
- Wiegmink, Pia. Protest EnACTed: Activist Performance in the Contemporary United States. Heidelberg: Winter, 2011, 434 pp., € 54.00.
- Stephen Greer. Contemporary British Queer Performance. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan 2012, 245 pp., £ 47.38.
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- What Narrative? What Dissent?: Refractive Visions of India in M. Duras’s India Song and M. Padmanabhan’s Harvest
- The Political with a Small p: A Re-evaluation of Brian Friel’s The Freedom of the City
- ‘Gar O’Donnell and the Philadelphia’: Traditional Song and ‘The Irish Showband’ in Brian Friel’s Philadelphia, Here I Come! (1964)
- Non-Productive Expenditure and Sam Shepard’s States of Shock: A Performance of Waste
- Sarah Kane’s Blasted – Genesis of the Subject
- “Theatre Matters”: Discovering the True Self in Terrence McNally’s Dedication
- Asyntactic Contact with Fleshless Words: Con/tactile Aesth/Ethics in The Castle
- Wendy Aarons & Theresa J. May(eds.).Readings in Performance and Ecology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 256 pp., $59.49.
- Chris Megson. Modern British Playwriting: The 1970s. London: Methuen Drama, 2012, xii + 299 pp., $90.00 (hardback), $27.95 (paperback), $26.99 (PDF ebook). Jane Milling. Modern British Playwriting: The 1980s. London: Methuen Drama, 2012, xii + 313 pp., $90.00 (hardback), $27.95 (paperback), $26.99 (PDF ebook). Aleks Sierz. Modern British Playwriting: The 1990s. London: Methuen Drama, 2012. X + 277 pp., $90.00 (hardback), $27.95 (paperback), $26.99 (PDF ebook).
- Elaine Aston and Geraldine Harris.A Good Night Out for the Girls: Popular Feminisms in Contemporary Theatre and Performance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 218 pp.
- Ulrike Behlau-Dengler. Zakhor! Remembering the British-Jewish Experience in British-Jewish Drama after 1945, CDE Studies 21, Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2011, 492 pp., € 48.50.
- Lilian Chambers & Eamonn Jordan (eds.). The Theatre of Conor McPherson. ‘Right beside the Beyond’. Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2012, 309 pp., € 44.99
- Frances Babbage. Re-visioning Myth: Modern and Contemporary Drama by Women. New York: Manchester UP, 2011, x + 261 pp., $85.50.
- Victor Merriman. ‘Because we are poor’: Irish Theatre in the 1990s. Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2011, 250 pp., € 20.00.
- Wiegmink, Pia. Protest EnACTed: Activist Performance in the Contemporary United States. Heidelberg: Winter, 2011, 434 pp., € 54.00.
- Stephen Greer. Contemporary British Queer Performance. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan 2012, 245 pp., £ 47.38.