The evolution of urban modernity in Bengal is inextricably bound to the historical trajectory of theatre as both a performative form and a cultural institution. With the rise, the evolution of urban modernity in Bengal is inextricably bound to the historical trajectory of theatre as both a performative form and a cultural institution. With the rise of Kolkata as a colonial metropolis in the late eighteenth century, theatre emerged not merely as entertainment but as a crucial site of social distinction, moral pedagogy, and colonial mimicry. Initially nurtured by British administrators seeking to recreate metropolitan civility, it was soon appropriated by the Bengali-landed elite and English-educated middle class, who used theatre to stage their aspirational modernity. The content and aesthetic orientation of early theatre reflected a colonial episteme, valorizing order, refinement, and bourgeois morality, thus rendering the form inaccessible to the rural poor and working classes. Over the nineteenth century, theatre became a key domain for articulating debates on social reform, gender, nationalism, and religious identity, shaping the contours of an emerging Bengali public sphere. The 1940s saw a radical turn with the advent of the People’s Theatre Movement, deeply informed by Marxist politics and committed to reconfiguring theatre as an emancipatory popular medium. Yet, the postcolonial decades witnessed a partial retreat, as Group Theatre increasingly mirrored the urban elitism it once critiqued. This history foregrounds a constitutive tension; theatre’s capacity to function as a democratic cultural practice remains persistently undermined by structures of privilege. Nonetheless, the continuing struggle to reclaim theatre as a space of collective critical engagement speaks to the unfinished, yet vital, project of cultural democratization in urban Bengal.