A traveling troupe of players, headed by the Buckinghams, a married couple of British Shakespearean actors, tours India performing in the years just after independence. Eager to adapt to the newly formed and still-evolving nation, the Buckinghams are nevertheless forced to confront their increasing irrelevance. Meanwhile, their daughter falls for a wealthy young Indian, who is in turn the lover of one of the new stars of the rising Indian film industry. Out of this roundelay, Shakespeare Wallah fashions a bittersweet account of the frictions at the hinges between "East" and "West," and between "high art" and "popular culture."