On Saturday evening, a forgotten superstar of Bengali theatre was revived. Tara Sundari, an eponymous monodrama featuring Gargee Roychowdhury, premiered to a packed G.D. Birla Sabhaghar. The 118-minute solo performance drew a long round of applause — the kind once reserved for the real Tara Sundari a century ago.

A stage legend, a sex symbol and the darling of the audience, yet lonely and craving love, Tara Sundari was many people in one. From the late 19th to the early 20th century, she ruled Bengali theatre, dazzling audiences in both tragedy and comedy.

“She is one of the four most famous female stage actors of colonial Bengal, alongside Nati Binodini, Tinkari Dasi, and, later, Prabha Devi,” said Roychowdhury during a rehearsal on Thursday.

“Nati Binodini has been studied in depth, but Tara Sundari has been neglected. There’s hardly any work on her. Legend has it she could hold tears in one eye and steal a wink with the other.”

The play, the first production from Roychowdhury’s company Theatre Plus, offers a glimpse into the golden age of theatre in what was then the world’s second most important British city. Written and directed by Ujjwal Chattopadhyay, it traces Tara’s public persona and her private struggles.

“There were very few references,” said Chattopadhyay. “Our research relied on a handful of books on Bengali theatre by Upendranath Bidyabhushan, Arabinda Guha, Sankar Chakraborty, Devnarayan Gupta, and two works by Bratya Basu.”

A gifted singer and dancer, Tara was known for roles such as Shailabani in Chandrashekhar, Ayesha in Durgesh Nandini, Damayanti in Nal Damayanti, and the leads in Riziya and Jana. She even played Desdemona in a celebrated Bengali adaptation of Othello — no small feat for an unlettered woman.

Her fame reached its height during her long stint with Classic Theatre, run by actor-playwright Amarendranath Datta. Their personal relationship, however, ended bitterly. When Datta took Tara to court, she fought back — and won.

“She was a feisty woman who held her ground in a world where galleries were packed, yet female actors were ostracised,” said Roychowdhury.

Tara later found love again with actor-director Aparesh Mukherjee. Together, they were a dazzling pair on stage as well.