Two Plays: "The Grand Exit" and "A Conversation with Dolly"

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, and .   In , 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 honor the former’s final wish. 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.