SOURCE: A review of The Indian Theatre, in Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 64, No. 254, October-December, 1951, p. 439.

In the following review, Anderson asserts that "Anand sees the theatre as a potent instrument for social reform."

This attractively printed and illustrated volume [The Indian Theatre] is at once a somewhat partisan history of the theatre in India today and an essay on the persistence and value of the folk tradition in the theatre. The author sketches first the origin of folk drama—a subject which does not readily admit of such compression as it receives here—and then surveys the theatre in each of the great provinces of India. The book is of value in presenting compactly the extensive and varied use of folk institutions and themes in the drama of a politically awakened India. In Bengal where the influence of the Tagore household has been considerable Mulk Raj Anand...