Guriya-Ghar: Tripti Mitra’s Take on Sambhu Mitra’s Putul Khela

Abstract

The paper discusses Tripti Mitra’s Guriya-Ghar (1981), a Hindi adaptation of Sambhu Mitra’s Putul Khela (1958), an acclaimed Bengali re-creation of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (1879). The Hindi adaptation premiered in Kolkata featured the celebrated actress-director Usha Ganguli as Munya (Nora) who also adapted it into Hindi. The paper employs theatre historiography as its analytical tool to reconstruct the performance and its reception. It argues that the selection of performance testifies to the strong authority, prestige or powerful “cultural capital” connected to Putul Khela. It will show how the Hindi production was not simply copied into a new context. Instead, it will demonstrate that the production became a powerful contemporary statement for the simple reason that the director, actors and spectators re-created the performance with their own time and agenda in the back of their minds.