This day marked the first performance at Oriental Theatre, the second Bengali public theatre to open in the city. The first public theatre, National Theatre, had been set up in December, 1872.
The play that was performed was Ramnarayan Tarkaratna’s Malatimadhab.
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Not all reaction to the coming up of a second public theatre was congratulatory.
A piece in the Bengali periodical Madhyastha raised its eyebrow at the English name.
In a wry tone, it first observed that the city had been aggrieved at not being able to pay for watching plays. But now that that problem had been addressed, one could wonder why the people of this country were so devoted to English that they had to name a theatre, where Bengali plays were performed, in English.
