Prominent Indian theatre personality Vijaya Mehta passed away on 30 June 2026 in Mumbai. Mehta was a pioneer of modern Indian theatre in several languages, including Marathi, Hindi, and English, and she made important contributions to the integration of Sanskrit and folk theatre forms into contemporary theatre. Mehta served as Chairperson of the National School of Drama in Delhi, as Chairperson of the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune, and as Executive Director of the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai. She was also a key figure in Indian-German relations through theatre and through Brecht. In a decades-long working relationship with Fritz Bennewitz (1926-1995), Brechtian director and artistic director at the German National Theatre in Weimar, they collaborated on a Marathi adaptation of Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle in Mumbai in 1973 and a Hindi adaptation of Goethe’s Faust in the same city in 1993-94, as well as on German-language versions of Vishakadhatta’s Mudrarakshasa in Weimar in 1976, of Kalidasa’s Sakuntala in Leipzig in 1980, of Girish Karnad’s Hayavadana in 1984, and of Karnad’s Nagamandala in Leipzig in 1992.

Obituaries for Mehta can be found at The Indian Express, The Hindustan Times, The Statesman, The National Herald, The Hindu [paywall], Frontline, Scroll.in, That Eric Alper, and the BBC, among many others.

For further details on Vijaya Mehta’s work in Germany and her collaboration with Fritz Bennewitz, see

• Esleben, Joerg. “The Transnational Turn(ing) of Transposed Heads: Hayavadana in Weimar.” Transnational Intersections of Germany and India: Beyond Fascination, edited by Perry Myers, Palgrave Macmillan, 2024, pp. 185-208. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-75348-0
• Esleben, Joerg. “Śakuntalā in the GDR: Gender Dynamics in Vijaya Mehta’s Leipzig production of Kālidāsa’s Play.” Gendered Encounters between Germany and Asia: Transnational Perspectives, 1800-2000, edited by Joanne Miyang Cho and Douglas T. McGetchin, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, pp. 213-229. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40439-4
• Esleben, Joerg, with Rolf Rohmer and David G. John. Fritz Bennewitz in India: Intercultural Theatre with Brecht and Shakespeare. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2016. DOI: https://utppublishing.com/doi/book/10.3138/9781487500382

Header photograph of Vijaya Mehta in 2012 by Pakshya, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vijaya_mehta.jpg, used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.