Theatres of Independence is the first comprehensive study of drama, theatre, and urban performance in post-independence India. Combining theatre history with theoretical analysis and literary interpretation, Aparna Dharwadker examines the unprecedented conditions for writing and performance that the experience of new nationhood created in a dozen major Indian languages and offers detailed discussions of the major plays, playwrights, directors, dramatic genres, and theories of drama that have made the contemporary Indian stage a vital part of postcolonial and world theatre. The first part of Dharwadker's study deals with the new dramatic canon that emerged after 1950 and the variety of ways in which plays are written, produced, translated, circulated, and received in a multi-lingual national culture. The second part traces the formation of significant postcolonial dramatic genres from their origins in myth, history, folk narrative, sociopolitical experience, and the intertextual connections between Indian, European, British, and American drama. The book's ten appendixes collect extensive documentation of the work of leading playwrights and directors, as well as a record of the contemporary multilingual performance histories of major Indian, Western, and non-Western plays from all periods and genres. Treating drama and theatre as strategically interrelated activities, the study makes post-independence Indian theatre visible as a multifaceted critical subject to scholars of modern drama, comparative theatre, theatre history, and the new national and postcolonial literatures.

独立的剧院》是第一部全面研究独立后印度的戏剧、剧院和城市表演的作品。Aparna Dharwadker将戏剧史与理论分析和文学阐释相结合，研究了新国家的经历在印度十几种主要语言中创造的前所未有的写作和表演条件，并详细讨论了使当代印度舞台成为后殖民主义和世界戏剧的重要组成部分的主要戏剧、剧作家、导演、戏剧流派和戏剧理论。Dharwadker研究的第一部分涉及1950年后出现的新戏剧典籍，以及在多语言民族文化中戏剧的写作、制作、翻译、传播和接受的各种方式。第二部分从神话、历史、民间叙事、社会政治经验以及印度、欧洲、英国和美国戏剧之间的互文联系的源头，追溯了重要的后殖民主义戏剧流派的形成。该书的10个附录收集了主要剧作家和导演作品的大量文献，以及所有时期和流派的主要印度、西方和非西方戏剧的当代多语言表演历史记录。该研究将戏剧和剧场视为战略上相互关联的活动，使独立后的印度戏剧成为现代戏剧、比较戏剧、戏剧史以及新的民族和后殖民文学的学者们所关注的一个多层面的批评对象。