A CORIGENDUM
In
response to my Blog on Rangalok’s CORNER PLOT, Shyamal, its creator informs
me that the first production of the play was not by Rangalok but was by
Roopdarsan, and it was staged around 1998-99. Roopdarsan is no more in
existence, but its memory is still there, and it would have been wrong on my
part not to have acknowledge them in my Blog.
So,
I stand corrected, and thanks to Shyamal for correcting me.
CORNER PLOT of Rangalok: a renewed presentation of a genuine
satire (staged on 5 July 2026)
After
quite a long time it was enjoying to witness an example of an archetypal satire,
that punches holes into the façade of a supposedly fool-proof and faultless societal
and administrative system. And it does this with any speck of innuendo towards
any political party. The stupidities, the pretenses and loads of unethical vices
that are embedded in the systems themselves stand bear open as Rangalok’s
latest play CORNER PLOT unfolded on the Giris Mancha stage. This very play by
Loknath Bandopadhyay was staged around the beginning of this century by
Rangalok under the direction of the helmsman of the group Shyamal Chakraborty,
who even acted in the pivotal role. This time it is a renewed presentation of
the same play but in a new package that fits well with the changed time.
A typical
‘common man’ Joydeb suddenly gets to own a single storied vacant house in the
suburb as a munificent act of a rich well-wisher. The house happens to be on a
corner plot, and so his wife and his two daughters and son are all very happy.
He does a few renovation works and arranges a house-warming ceremony. A priest
is brought and the puja is performed in full earnestness. None of their
relatives nor friends are informed nor invited. But two of Joydeb’s office colleagues
get to know and arrive there to join the party. This puts Joydeb in a very
embarrassing situation. But some bigger surprise was waiting for Joydeb’s
family. The Prime Minister was supposed to come to that place to inaugurate a
fertilizer plant that has been built nearby. The ruling party wants to welcome
the PM and felicitate him. The opposition party on the other hand wants to stage
a protest and show him black flags. Both the groups plan to erect their stages
in the compound of the house as it has an advantage of being at the corner
position of the main road through which the PM’s motorcade would be going. Joydeb
had consented to both the groups for he was helpless. Then comes the PM’s
security force, and according to them as the house is in a very strategic
position, they would take over the house for the day. This lands Joydeb in a
boiling soup. Meanwhile taking advantage of this doldrum and chaos, the boyfriend
of the elder daughter comes in the garb of a terrorist to visit his sweetheart.
Joydeb decides to abandon the house for the time being with his family. They
are ultimately saved by the benevolent well-wisher.
A very
well spun comedy is presented brilliantly by Shyamal with all the resources
needed to make the production a success. It is said that timing is utmost
important in comedy acting. But this is true, I believe in those parts where
speech is less and silent physical acting has more space. But in a verbose
play, comedy can be effected if the actors can grasp the comic sequences
through which the playwright wanted to get to the point and for which he has
given his dialogues a particular structure. This results in the expressions and
gestures of the actors, that eventually leads the spectators to break into
feats of laughter. Sanjeeb Sarkar has simply excelled in his presentation of a
totally confused Joydeb. The viewers have rarely seen such a flawless comic
acting. His expressions, his delivery of lines with perfect scanning, together
with immaculate timing in sequences that required him to have physical
precisions. He could imbibe the joy with which he performed his role into the
spectators, and that is what acting is all about. Shyamal had done this
character in the earlier version. It was good to see that veteran Aparna Biswas
as the wife Menoka has kept her skill intact. The well-wisher Sadananda was
aptly portrayed by Shyamal Sarkar in a flamboyant colour. Abhisek Roy as the
son, Shiropa Roy and Puja Dutta as the two daughters, Swaraj Dutta as the
priest, and Baishakhi Kundu and Sourav Kundu as the two colleagues did their
respective parts as directed. Biswajit Ghosh Majumdar as the boyfriend demands
a round of applause for his performance. In sundry roles Gopal Ghosh, Sisir
Ranjan Roy, Bibhas Banerjee and Swarnabha Goswami were neat in their acting,
and with just a simple change in their attire and in their gaits, Shyamal could
very well separate the two political groups. And that tells how intent was
Shyamal to put up a commendable presentation.
It was
heartening to see Shyamal has kept the original stage design done by Ranajit
Chakraborty, with Sudip Sanyal not adding any extra lights. Likewise, Swapan
Bandopadhyay too kept the background score unaltered. Make-up work by Biddhatrideb
Sarkar and the artwork by Nilabha Chattopadhyay deserve appreciation.
Since the
viewing of this play on 5 July I did not see any play till date, because of
some unavoidable reasons.
So, I have
no other plays in hand for discussion. I hope to once again start haunting the
theatre halls very soon, and would be happy to share my thoughts about them
with you.
Till then
I will be blogging on other topics related to this world.
So, see
you soon.
Cheerio….e original stage design done by Ranajit Chakraborty, with Sudip Sanyal not adding any extra lights. Likewise, Swapan Bandopadhyay too kept the background score unaltered. Make-up work by Biddhatrideb Sarkar and the calligraphic work by Nilabha Chattopadhyay deserve appreciation.
LAGAN CHAND by Thealight: a good theatre staged in a good way (staged on 20 June 2026)
On the
conclusion of their
year-long silver jubilee celebrations Thealight staged their latest play LAGAN
CHAND, written by Atanu Sarkar based on a storyline by Prasanta Ghosh at
Giris Mancha. Under the able guidance of Atanu, they prefer to stage their stage
productions solely for theatre’s sake. They treat theatre as a typical form of
art, rather than a didactic tool to teach the masses. The present work, too, is
an example of what Shombhu Mitra wanted ‘to stage a good theatre in a good
way’.
Lagan is a raddiwala who goes about in his
bicycle buying old newspapers and selling them to the scrap dealer, and somehow
work out a living for him and his pregnant wife in a shanty. A person advises
him to start buying and selling rejected articles instead of old newspapers, as
in this trade the profit is more. Lagan starts afresh and in the first shot
buys and sells an old harmonium, that fetches him a good profit. Next, he buys an old teakwood bed. But in the
meantime, his wife meets with an accident and the child is aborted. To look
after his wife Lagan has to stop going out in his trade, thus he faces a
crisis. After his wife recuperates he once again goes out with his cycle to buy
rejected articles. He meets an old gentleman who has a liking for him. From him
he learns that he would be selling off his house as he has disinherited his son
who has settled abroad, and would like Lagan and his wife to shift from their
shanty and live in the house. He tells he wants to write-off the property to
Lagan, in exchange Lagan has to provide space for him to stay in the house.
Lagan tells the gentleman that as he deals in rejected articles and things he
would agree to the gentleman’s proposal if he is given the rejected paternal
love that he used to give to his son.
The
sentimentality of the story would certainly attract the viewers. The play has a
few loose ends that did not allow it to be fully baked. The section of the
person on whose advice he had diversified his business seemed superfluous. So were the bazar scenes and the hospital sequence. Or, for that matter the off-stage situation
that was designed with a kid was totally redundant. The concern of the director
to provide every member of the group with something to do on the stage, was
felt. On the other hand of course, there are a number vey well crafted scenes
that Atanu had provided for the spectators. Especially the scenes of Lagan and
his wife, or the dream-like sequence of the gentleman imagining his grand
daughter in his house. Viewers would have liked to see these sequences a little
more elaborated. Atanu should be credited for not having given any patronage to
melodrama in his script.
Making
the famous ‘Ei duniaye bhai sobi hoye, sobi hoye – Sob sattiy, sob sattiy’,
the thematic refrain, Atanu has given his play a surrealistic touch. Such
golden oldies have been used by the playmaker, that transports the audience to
the pre-mall times of old Kolkata. He has kept his stage abstract, perhaps
keeping to the theme of the drama. Adrish Kumar Roy has done the stage, his work
with the poster is commendable. Soumen Chakraborty’s lights were good but here
too, we find the design fails to avoid smoke. Background score is designed by
the playmaker and has been implemented by Samson Mathur Chakraborty.
Apart
from Shampa Das Sarkar in the role of the wife and Shanku Kumar Das’s Lagan, no
one else could impress in their works. Shampa has once again exhibited her
talent with her expressions and gestures though having a very limited
stage-time. Shanku had to bear a lot of weight as Lagan, and skillfully he
could express the different moods of the character. Others especially
Soutindrakrishna Deb as the gentleman, and Sukumar Das as the person who
advised Lagan to diversify, were mechanical in their dialogues and expressions.
Little Alankrita Sarkar was easy, fluent and had no inhibition in her work.
Rangalok’s
CORNER PLOT will be my next play for discussion.
I would like to
apologise at the beginning of this Blog for having missed to translate the
title of Paramik’s play. The title of the play is ROOPANTAR, the
translation of the name would be like ‘Transformation’ or ‘Metamorphosis’. Personally,
I prefer ‘Transformation’.
SHESH
MATHATA KATA PARHAR AAGE (transl: Before the last decapitation) of
Chaturtha Matra presented on 14 June 2026
Kaberi
Basu and Santanu Bandopadhyay presented Chaturtha Matra’s latest production SHESH
MATHATA KATA PARHAR AAGE, not at their usual site at Achira in Bolpur’s
Phuldanga, but at a newly developed space in the house of the legendary
thespian and playmaker Asit Mukhopadhyay at Monoharpukur in Kolkata. The
daughters of the great theatre personality have developed his erstwhile 2nd
floor bedroom into an intimate space or a studio space and have named it Asit
Mukhopadhyay Cultural Centre. Chaturtha Matra has planned to present
performances and other theatre related events at AMCC twice every month.
As part
of that programme, they performed this play based on a mini-story by Mojaffor Hossain
of Bangladesh. Typical to their genre of theatre, this too is designed in an
arrangement far from the conventional theatrical form. Since the last 8 to 9 years,
Chaturtha Matra has been regularly practising their type of theatre on the 1st
and the 3rd Saturdays of every month at Achira. If any of my readers
are interested to know about their type of work, they can refer to my Blog of
19 October 2024 where I in discussing about their journal, Theare Journal
had talked briefly about their kind of work.
Mojaffor
Hossain’s story is based on a surrealistic Polish puppet animation film, Danny
Boy made by Marek Skrobeki in 2010. The fable like story goes like this.
One morning a person gets up from his bed and finds everyone in and around,
including the young and the old, the blind beggar, roadside salesmen, car
drivers, the bank-robber, the street dogs - each and every one of them headless.
They have all been decapitated. He finds the whole town in total chaos, and in
a hellish disorganised state. He sees people bumping into others, cars
colliding and trampling people and such countless deranged situations all
around. He finds a helpless headless woman standing in the centre of the road.
He brings some flowers to her and moves her aside. Rampant cases of rape,
murder and barbarous cruelty make the place the Devil’s paradise. Even the
personal world of a person does not remain personal anymore. He comes to
understand that everything happening there is the handiwork of the authority in
power. As the members of the population are all head-less there is thus no
protest, no uproar, no howling, no screams of frightening terror. He seeks
legal help, but there too, he finds law decapitated. At the end he too, has his
head guillotined.
Kaberi
& Santanu do not care to entertain their viewers with lollipop contents.
Instead force them to perceive the morbid conditions they are living in. The
contents they choose have strong comments on the system as in this work. Mojaffor
Hossain’s symbolic story is a wake-up call for the spectators to fight a
totalitarian system that is looming overhead. Their genre is more akin to
anti-theatricality. They used the room, the adjoining passage and the balcony,
as is their style of mobile space. Four to five co-actors represent the
decapitated people of the town by wrapping their heads in plastic sheets. Their
physical acting warrants a round of applause. Especially the work of Subhamita
Majumdar as a headless pedestrian repeatedly bumping into an obstacle and falling
down, needs to be mentioned. The others were Monideepa Goswami and Biplab Gayen.
Kaberi was one of them too. At the end she with her silent mime expressed
loudly the predicament facing the general mass. A seasoned actor like her could
have presented such a gripping moment. Choreographic dance movement in this
section by Rupali needs to be appreciated.
Ropes and
transparent plastic packets strewn all around the floor representing the torn
out visceral parts of the people is a very telling application of simple prop
items. The projection of the original Strobecki film on the background wall and
the overhead ceiling was so very distorted that viewing the performance in
front was greatly hampered. Was this a deliberate act by Santanu? Who
knows.
The next
play to be discussed would be LAGAN CHAND by Thealight staged on 20 June
2026
ABU HOSSAIN of Nandiranga:
a gem of a work that cajoles one to see it once more (staged on 10 June 2026)
Typical musical comedies are the rarest of the rare
genre of all the productions in today’s Bengali theatre. Whenever one speaks of
this particular category of theatre the first name that comes to one’s mind are
those of Girish Chandra’s ABU HOSSAIN and Kshiroprasad’s ALIBABA,
both based from the Arabian Nights. One such scarce modern-day representative
of the genre penned by Badal Sircar, as a sort of a modern-day adaptation or as
he himself said, ‘distortion’ of Giris Chandra’s hilarious musical play.
Witnessing Nandiranga’s superb production of the same,
a few thoughts fleeted by. I remember seeing Shatabdi’s production in the early
70’s which was perhaps the last proscenium work by Sircar. But though that
memory has faded, what still remains is the scintillating performance of Pankaj
Munshi, one of the most decent theatrical personalities, who left us a few days
back. And of course I recollect the pleasant exuberance that excited me for
long. With these sweet memories I even today, remember the resentment that
filled me during those final years of my school, when all the blockbuster
Bengali & Hindi films had to flood the cinema halls of Calcutta. Naturally,
it was surely not possible to see most of the films, but the songs thereof, had
no barriers to filter in via the radio, and the Puja pandals. Such were
the tunes and the lyrics that they stayed with us day in and day out, and as a
logical fall-out studies hampered. I can vouch that those of us who appeared
for the finals of school in the end of the 60’s and in the beginning of the
70’s could have peaked their careers if such distractions were not there.
Certainly, if those songs had not been composed, we would have done …. God
knows what!
And Badal-babu used the chartbuster tunes in his play,
and that did the trick. He wrote the play in the jatra-pala form. There
are numerous songs in the play, while Ghose had used light classical tunes,
Sircar has used the tunes of the then popular film songs and folk songs, thus
making the play a unique parody, of sorts.
Nandiranga under the able direction of Titas Thakur
has kept the tunes of those ever-green songs. And for this viewer it was once
again a revisit to the past excitement. Take for instance many a song, 18 to 19
I suppose like ‘Chunri samal gori’ or ‘Dil ko dekho chehera na dekho’
or ‘Aapko pahele bhi kanhi dekha haye’ or ‘Peyar hua haye jabse’,
or else ‘Aami kon pathe je choli’, or ‘Pagla garaod kothaye aachhe’
or ‘Aami je jalsa ghare’ or ‘Aami shree shree bhajahori manna’
just caused a euphoria hard to describe.
It was wonderful to see how about fifteen artistes
enliven the stage for two and a half hours. And each and every moment of these
hours was saturated in music. The smooth change of scenes, and keeping up a
speedy rhythm all through speak volumes about Thakur’s play-making skills.
These days it has become almost customary to have the players stamping and
stomping the stage, as an attempt in the exhibition of ‘performance’. Though in
this process ‘acting’ takes a back seat. But for a refreshing change the viewer
gets to see good acting even in sundry characters, like those of butties,
courtiers, guards, pedestrians, apart from dancers, companions and singers.
Hence to keep up the spirit of the script, each actor has to do 7 to 8 roles.
And here only one could feel the total dedication and earnestness of every
actor to give their best. Shubhankar Bhattacharya as the old Badshah, with a
bold voice throw, immaculate diction, and the ability to sing songs need to be
applauded, at the very beginning. During the change of scenes, the director
makes him sing a couple of lines of the main song on which the parody has been
created, on the forestage while shifting and other jobs are undertaken in the
back. Arup Mukhopadhyay’s Ujir was better performed than that of the Hakim.
Suman Sinha Roy had little to do as Haroon, but was as relaxed as he usually is
in his other performances. Shipra Pal as the Begum was also as easy as she
typically is. Lipi Saha as Abu’s mother and Mou Roychoudhury as Roshena did
their individual roles perfectly. Binoy Dalui, Anirban Deb, Raju Das, Indra
Mali and Sukanta Shil did their parts well as the five madmen.
It was a
real exposé for me to watch one of young acting talents of the
Bengali stage Saptarshi Bhowmik, whose quite a few works I have had the
opportunity to see. His Abu simply floored the viewers watching in awe the
energy level he could attain. He transformed the acting space of the Academy of
Fine Arts’ stage into the courtyard of his own house, as if. With his body
language and gestures he presented the character in its perfect colour and
tone. His diction and vocal modulation could bring the words of Sircar
unambiguously to the spectators. The director could be seen to be particular
regarding delivery of lines in regard to all characters. The cues and scanning have
been done neatly for all the characters of the play.
Another
vital sector of this production is the music department which was beautifully
handled by Subhajit Das. In the tradition of Sircar form, the musicians are
stationed on the stage performing as accompanists to the songs sung by the
actors, or doing the background score. On the harmonium was the veteran Subir
Sanyal, and accompanying him was Soudeep Chakraborty in the percussions,
Neelargha Dutta on the banjo and Srinath Mukherjee in the drums. Vocal support
was given by Ritambhara Ghosh. Lights were done by Sadhan Pari, but there were
quite a number of slips in his job! Bilu Dutta’s stage was a neat job. The
dance compositions and choreography need a round of claps.
As is the
common trait in today’s theatre shows, there were a handful of spectators
present to see this non-celebrity presentation of Nandiranga. It is
unfortunate. No, I did not express this sympathy for the present situation of
the Bengali stage, but for those who did not (care to) see such a gem of a
work.
I will
come back next with SESH MATHATA KATA PARAR AAGE of Chaturtha Matra staged on 14 June
2026.
ROOPANTAR of Paramik Barrackpore: an adaptation of Max
Frisch (staged on 1 June 2016)
Paramik
presented the play ROOPANTAR at the Academy of Fine Arts under the
direction of Subhajit Bandopadhyay. The play has been written by Anirban Sen,
one of the promising young Bengali playwrights. He has adapted this play from Swiss
playwright and novelist Max Frisch’s drama The Fire Raisers
also known as The Firebugs. Long back a group had staged this play in
its translated form.
The
original story of two arsonists in the garb of salesmen coming to a house of a
businessman and planning to blow it up, and is helped by the owner of the
house, who represents the common ‘everyman’, and who is totally ignorant about
the plan, has been transformed into a different narrative by Anirban. In his
version a revolting ‘terrorist’ party worker decides to visit every household
and awaken the good sense of the common man. So, Frisch’s ‘everyman’, who prefers
to stay naïve and avoid facing the looming dangers all around,
and yearns for a comfortable bourgeoise life, becomes the general common man here,
Frisch showed that this complacency, moral irresponsibility unknowingly acknowledges
a totalitarian system. In Anirban’s story we find a very highly placed bureaucrat
who as part of the government enjoys all the fruits of power, and nurtures the
organised corruption and decadence of the society. He also incites his own
daughter to take to dishonest and corrupt ways to promote herself in her field
of work. But the daughter who due to the upbringing that she got from her mother
resist this. Anirban tells us that lady’s father is a communist believing in
strong moral values. After the previous change of government, he is shown to be
coerced by a lumpen student leader. At the end of the play, we see that youth revolting
against the bureaucrat and go out on his mission to change the system, but is
killed in a police encounter. And the wife of the bureaucrat, too, take the
path to bring change. At the end a few questions come up in the viewer’s mind.
If the youth is not Frisch’s arsonist, then why was the terror ambience built
up at the beginning? Was it to suggest a fake encounter? Or why was the youth
shown to be a Muslim?
Frisch
had written this drama in the early ‘50s, almost at the same time that Ionesco
wrote Rhinoceros. These black comedies had the touch of absurdity and
were like parables aimed at Fascism and Nazism. As the situations throughout
the world stands, these forces are very much active. But Anirban just missed
the bus as his play though had the political touch, had drifted to a melodrama
that diverts the viewers’ point of view.
Subhajit
has, I should say, very unnecessarily stressed on designing. With a very
promising start the play then meanders into a mire of confusion. The chair,
table, stool and three bamboos draped in plastic do not help in the stage craft.
The entrances and the exits are kept non-specific. The use of a trolley in the conversation
sequence of the mother with her daughter is unexplainably pointless. Excepting for
Saheb Sanyal’s lights, the stage design nor the background score help the play.
As the
cast-list was not available individual performances can not be discussed. It is
presumed that Bratin Gangopadhyay did the bureaucrat and Swagata Sengupta the
wife. Both appropriately did their designated roles. It can also be assumed
that Subhajit did the youth’s part. He could well bring the casualness of the
character. Others did as told to.
In the next
Blog we will be discussing ABU HOSSAIN of Nandiranga staged on 10 June
2026.
See you till
then.
I had to come back….
In
my yesterday’s Blog I had said that I would be back after two days. But today’s
(17 September) issue of Desh compelled me to get back to my Blog.
Today’s
issue of Desh carries two of my reviews, one of Belgharia Rooptapas production
of SHANKO, and the other of Newtown Bratyajon’s MARSHUMER EKDIN.
It
also carries Shubhankar Bhattacharya’s very well-written theatre review of
Bengaluru’s Smaranik’s production of Indrashis Lahiri’s play DRISHTIKANYA.
What amazes me is that this same production of the same play by the same group under
the same director had been reviewed by me way back in 2014. It, though not
often, happens that the same play staged by two, or sometimes three, or may be
more groups like in the case of Tagore’s RAKTAKARABI, have been
reviewed. This aptly reflects the diversity of thoughts and interpretations
amongst the groups. But a presentation of the same play by the same group has
little to suggest other than acknowledging a new set of actors doing some of the
parts. I may mention that this play had been produced by Indrashis himself for
his Chena Mukh, a long time back. I had mentioned this in my review twelve
years back.
Another
point of indignation that I find has garnered in me. Lately I find that they
have their own system of pronunciation of Western names or English words, that
does not go with my way of pronunciation. Like for instance, I pronounce Brecht
in the English way as BREKHT, as Shombhu Babu used to pronounce. In fact I learnt
this diction of the name from him. Some pronounce it in the voiceless velar
fricative sound (ch) like in the German way. As a result, I had been
writing the name in Bengali script as BREKHT since long. Suddenly in a recent
issue I found the word had been edited to BRESHT! On enquiry I was told that
they have adapted their phonetic system of spelling of foreign words. But for
that to be implemented the correct diction needs to be known.
But the ultimate of it all has been for the word ‘visual’. In my review of SHANKO, I had written ‘visual’ in the correct diction as ‘vizhual’ in the Bengali script as ভিজ্যু়য়াল. But to my horror I found the word has been changed to ভিশুয়াল !
I believe this is sheer unbearable torture, of sorts.
May God help me!!!
