Three Indian plays and Rabindranath Tagore in NYC
One hundred years ago today … Kedar Nath Das Gupta directed three plays by Indian writers at the Bramhall Playhouse.
The Herald reported:
Under the auspices of the Union of East and West, Kedarnath Das Gupta will present three Hindu plays…. The cast Includes Misses Blanche Hays, Dorothy Rubinstein and Lilian Buch, Lark Bronlee, William Franklin, Kenneth Thomson, Howard McLennen and Walton Butterfield. They are making a special study of customs and manners of India under the instruction of Mr. Das Gupta, who has produced more than thirty plays in England and himself translated several of them.
“The Farewell Curse" is a lyrical playlet by the Hindu poet, Rabindranath Tagore. "The Maharani of Arakan" is a romantic comedy by George Caldron. founded on a story of Tagore, and "Savitri" or "Love Conquers Death," is adapted from a legend of the great Hindu epic, the Marabharata. Another attraction of the performances will be Hindu music and dance.
(“Three Hindu Plays,” New York Herald, 10 April 1921, p. 42.)
The Bulletin of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. United States, 1920 p. 101. Google Books.
It should not be surprising that a Tagore work was included. The 1913 Nobel Prize winner had visited New York City in late 1920 and early 1921, and attracted a fair amount of attention. He gave a lecture titled “The Meeting of East and West,” first at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (November 10, 1920), then for the League of Political Education (November 16, 1920), then at the Community Forum (January 2, 1921) (Tirtha). His trip prompted this commemoration in the News one year later:
Daily News, 1 January 1922, p. 25. Chronicling America.
Standard Union, 13 March 1921, p. 18. Chronicling America.
Tagore’s trip to the US, according to Kusum Pant Joshi, spurred Das Gupta’s voyage there. Joshi quotes the actor/director: “In 1920, I met Tagore in London. He told me America was wonderful and urged me to go there with him. I scraped up all my money and went.”
Das Gupta staged Tagore plays at the Garrick Theater in December 1920, then at Cooper Union in March 1921, prompting a review in Brooklyn’s Standard Union that sized up the audience:
Orientals were there also in goodly numbers, serious and detached in mien; the intelligentsia of the East Side, composed of all races, were there; a few native-born were scattered through the audience, and one frequently saw a middle-aged or elderly man, comfortably clothed, with workman's hands, sitting spellbound before the exotic performance.
On April 12th and 14th, Das Gupta’s productions were at the Bramhall, 138 E. 27th Street. Opened in 1915, the theater was photographed by P.L. Sperr in 1927 (whose work we have posted before).
Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, The New York Public Library. "Manhattan: 27th Street (East) - Lexington Avenue." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1927 - 1931.
The venue eventually became the Grammercy Playhouse and currently houses Repertorio Español.
Wikicommons.
References/Further Reading:
Joshi, Kusum Pant. “Kedar Nath Das Gupta, Dharma’s Early Pioneer.” Hinduismtoday.com.
Tirtha, Rabindra. “A Timeline of Tagore’s Life.” Rabindratirtha-wbhidcoltd.co.in
– Jonathan Goldman, April 14, 2021
TAGS: theater, drama, poetry, India, Indian American history, Hindi, South Asia, global modernism, orientalism,