The Empress

Tanika Gupta, the daughter of immigrants from Kolkata, India, was born and raised in London. Gupta’s first artistic and political interests originated with her family: both of her parents were performing artists, and her great-uncle Dinesh Gupta was a revolutionary advocate for Indian Home Rule (meaning the end of the British colonial government in India). As a child, Gupta performed traditional Indian Tagore dance with her parents, traveling across Europe before she settled down in Oxford for college. After a short post-graduate stint volunteering in Asian women’s refuge centers, Gupta began writing plays, many of which reimagined European literary classics in Indian historical contexts. In addition to penning more than 25 stage plays, Gupta has also written extensively for television, film, and BBC radio dramas. For her work in theater, Gupta was honored with an Order of the British Empire (MBE) and a fellowship from England’s Royal Society of Literature. Today, Gupta lives in London with her husband and three children, where she teaches drama and continues to write for radio and the stage.

Most of the characters in The Empress are real-world figures. Queen Victoria governed over the period of British imperial prosperity and expansion known, appropriately, as the Victorian Era. As in the play, the real-life Victoria was an avid reader and savvy politician; as in the play, her sympathy with the inequities of colonized India was undercut by her collaboration with British leaders who wanted to expand further into Africa and the Middle East. The queen’s relationship with Abdul Karim is similarly rooted in historical fact—though as The Empress depicts, Victoria’s close bond with Karim was a source of tension in the royal household. Additionally, Dadhabai Naoroji and Mohandas K. Gandhi remain two of the most influential figures in Indian politics: both men advocated for an end to the British Raj (colonial government of India), and Gandhi ultimately emerged as the leader of India’s successful independence movement (achieved 45 years after the conclusion of the events in The Empress). Finally, although protagonists Rani Das and Hari Sharma are not themselves historical figures, their stories reflect the real-life abuses experienced by many Victorian ayahs (nannies) and lascars (sailors).

Gupta cites Rozina Visram’s nonfiction book Ayahs, Lascars and Princes: The Story of Indians in Britain, 1700-1947 as the inspiration for the swirling cast of characters that makes up The Empress. But if the play takes its narrative inspiration directly from Visram, Gupta seems to also take some of her formal cues from the classic British texts that protagonist Rani Das reads in the play. With its focus on coincidental reunions and Victorian-era injustices, the play recalls work by Charles Dickens (most famous for his novels Oliver Twist and Great Expectations). With its romantic ending and clever banter, Gupta’s work mirrors that of Jane Austen (known for Pride and Prejudice). Finally, Gupta’s characters push back against the enduring legacy of Rudyard Kipling’s racist, imperialist poem “The White Man’s Burden,” which becomes a frequent source of contention in the play itself.