The accentual dialogized heteroglossia of Shakespeare in India: Utpal Dutt's legacy in Shakespeare Wallah and The Last Lear.

This article focuses on a key figure of Shakespearean performance in pre- and post-independence India: the Bengali stage and film actor, director, playwright, and theater activist Utpal Dutt (1929–1993). I trace Dutt's impact from his tours in the aftermath of independence with the Shakespeareana Company and his re-playing of Shakespeare in the Bengali Jatra tradition, through Rituparno Ghosh's 2007 The Last Lear. This focus on Dutt's influence is set against the backdrop of the politics of performing-adapting Shakespeare in Indian English accents, considering the accentual dialogized heteroglossia of Shakespearean performance in India after independence from British rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]