Two Plays

A collection of two plays by Indian playwright Satish Alekar.

Satish Alekar is widely considered one of the most progressive and influential playwrights in modern Indian theatre. This volume brings together two of Alekar’s plays written over half a century apart, The Grand Exit and A Conversation with Dolly.

In The Grand Exit, written in Marathi in 1974, a dead man insists on being cremated in an old crematorium that will soon be privatized. In this irreverent masterpiece, father and son confront the mundane to honour the former’s final wish. A Conversation with Dolly is the most contemporary of Alekar’s plays and his first to be published before it has been performed. In this play, an old man finds himself locked down during the COVID-19 pandemic, surrounded by Amazon boxes, talking and listening to his devoted nurse Dolly. Both plays are followed by interviews with the playwright which shed light on the origins and design of Alekar’s dramaturgical genius.