Gender Culture and Politics in the Select Plays of Poile Sengupta A Study

Abstract

In reverence to Indian English Drama, prominent reflection of male playwrights is a newlinedictum and retrospection of blurred existence of women writers in Indian theatrical newlineworld. The domination of phallic order and socio-cultural rudiments of Indian society newlinedispirited women writers to articulate and present their artistic talent in theatre. The newlineworld of women and women s issues till the rise of post-modern phase were presented newlineby male playwrights through their perception and convenience under the influence newlineand binding of societal patterns. The attempts of women writers in pre-independence newlinephase to explore the issues of women from women s perspective were not eye newlinecatching. Post modern phase witnesses numerous women playwrights like Manjula newlinePadmanbhan, Dina Mehta, Usha Ganguly and few others who have successfully newlineexplored the world of women through their plays in efficient manner. For the first newlinetime women s body, language, psychology and innate desire came to theatre in actual newlineway. Poile Sengupta is a dignified voice of contemporary Indian English Drama by newlinestaging her plays in effectual way and stands different from her other contemporaries newlinein a sense that she did not only produced plays but performed them with women at the newlinecentre. newlineThe plays of Poile Sengupta dramatize rudiments of gender, culture and newlinepolitics as well as explore the hegemonic order of society depriving women beneath newlinenumerous social practices. She personified the dimensions of gender, culture, politics newlineand its reputable subsistence in standard practices with phenomenon of margin and newlinecentre. The subjugation, humiliation and exploitation of women as a gender in life, newlineliterature, myth, family, politics, society and culture efficiently analyzed through the newlinesix select plays of Poile Sengupta anthologized as Women Centre Stage: The newlineDramatist and the Play and her plays are Mangalam (1993), Inner Laws (1994), newlineKeats Was a Tuber (1996), Alipha (2001), Thus Spake Shoorpanakha, So Said newlineShakuni (2001) and Samara s Song (2007). newlineThe manmade obligations and humiliation