Badal Sircar

Badal Sircar
Badal Sarkar in 2010
Born
Sudhindra Sircar[1]

(1925-07-15)15 July 1925
Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India
Died13 May 2011(2011-05-13) (aged 85)
Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Occupation(s)playwright, theatre director
Years active1945–2011
Notable workEvam Indrajit (And Indrajit) (1963)
Pagla Ghoda (Mad Horse) (1967)
Awards1968 Sangeet Natak Akademi Award
1972 Padma Shri
1997 Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship

Sudhindra Sircar (15 July 1925 - 13 May 2011), also known as Badal Sarkar, was an influential Indian dramatist and theatre director, most known for his anti-establishment plays during the Naxalite movement in the 1970s and taking theatre out of the proscenium and into public arena, when he transformed his own theatre company, Shatabdi (established in 1967 for proscenium theatre ) as a third theatre group . He wrote more than fifty plays of which Ebong Indrajit, Basi Khabar, and Saari Raat are well known literary pieces. A pioneering figure in street theatre as well as in experimental and contemporary Bengali theatre with his egalitarian "Third Theatre", he prolifically wrote scripts for his Aanganmanch (courtyard stage) performances, and remains one of the most translated Indian playwrights.[2][3] Though his early comedies were popular, it was his angst-ridden Evam Indrajit (And Indrajit) that became a landmark play in Indian theatre.[4] Today, his rise as a prominent playwright in 1960s is seen as the coming of age of Modern Indian playwriting in Bengali, just as Vijay Tendulkar did it in Marathi, Mohan Rakesh in Hindi, and Girish Karnad in Kannada.[5]

He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1972, Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1968 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship, the highest honour in the performing arts by Govt. of India, in 1997.[6]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference li was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "When all the world was onstage". Indian Express. 30 August 2004.
  3. ^ "A tribute to Badal Sircar". The Times of India. 19 July 2009. Archived from the original on 11 August 2011.
  4. ^ "Drama of the Indian theatre journey". Financial Express. 17 September 2006.
  5. ^ "Drama between the lines". Financial Express. 28 January 2007.
  6. ^ Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards Archived 23 November 2007 at the Wayback Machine Sangeet Natak Akademi website.