The staging of Dinabandu Mitra's Niladarpan, December 1872, marked the beginning of the modern professional Bengali theatre in Calcutta. Before this, performances of Bengali plays were given only for invited audiences in private theatres sponsored by the aristocracy. Jatra, the traditional theatre of Bengal, was of course available to everyone, but the rising middle classes of Calcutta, which had come to favor Western forms of art, regarded it as a corrupt and indecorous entertainment. Jatra, complained the middle-class audiences, followed neither the classical Sanskrit definitions of drama, nor the newly fashionable Western models. Jatra was two-thirds song; the dialogue, improvised during the performance by illiterate players, had no literary distinction; and, unlike the new drama represented by Niladarpan, Jatra used no scenery or permanent stage.

Performances of Niladarpan were open to anyone who could afford a ticket, an innovation in Bengali theatre which led to the opening of several other public theatres in the city, each with its company of players, giving regular performances.