No study of Indian drama is considered quite complete if it overlooks plays written in Marathi which is the official language of the people of Maharashtra, a state situated on the Western side of the Indian subcontinent.
The origin of Marathi drama may be traced back to the Powada (late seventeenth-century Marathi poems resembling ballads) and the Tamasha (musicals performed by travelling groups mainly in the eighteenth century). In fact, Vishnudas Amrut Bhave’s (1820-1905) Sita Swayamvar (Sita Chooses a Husband) (1843), the first Marathi drama to be performed, was more a musical, influenced also by Yakshagana, a folk theatre of Karnataka, a southern state of India. So, Vinayak Janardan Kirtane’s (1840-1891) Thorle Madhavrao Peshwa (The Elder Madhav Rao Peshwa, 1861), a play without
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Citation: Kar Barua, Sudeshna. "Marathi Drama". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 January 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19335, accessed 16 April 2024.]
