MACBETH – Shakespeare & Swapnasandhani

MACBETH – Shakespeare & Swapnasandhani

The first reference one gets of the staging of a Bengali translated version of Shakespeare’s Macbeth is of an attempt by Giris Ghosh after he took over the charge of the Minerva Theatre. That was in the year 1893. It was an outright flop. The theatre-goers of the then Calcutta did not like the production. Excepting for Ardhendu Sekhar Mustafi who performed in four roles – Witch, Porter, Old man and Doctor – none of the actors could satisfy the audience who were no less Giris fans. Later in 1897 Giris staged Hariraj, a Bengali adaptation of Hamlet – and it was an instant success story. Giris had interpreted the failure of his Bengali Macbeth as a failure on the part of the ‘uneducated and uninitiated’ Bengali viewers to grasp Shakespeare. He also commented that the viewers were relieved to witness Abu Hossain, the production that followed Macbeth. In 1919 the Bengali version of Othello was equally rejected though the first night was a bumper. It was the great thespian of that age Amar Dutta who could identify the main reason for the audience apathy for some Shakespeare productions. He said that the viewers loved and enjoyed the adapted versions instead of the translated ones. He produced Saudagar, a Bengali adaptation of Merchant of Venice and it was a hit.  Whenever Shakespeare or for that matter any foreign drama was adapted to an Indian setting to which the audience could identify themselves – the production was a success.           

One finds Sisirkumar Bhaduri in his long association with the Bengali stage had never attempted a Shakespeare. In the later years there have been a number of Bengali translated productions of Shakespeare, Macbeth also being among them, and  of which this writer had seen a few –  but they have not registered in his memory as such.  But it is also true that many of the original Shakespeare plays have flopped in London itself. And among them are highly starred productions like the one of no other than Sir Laurence Olivier.  It is interesting to note that in the context of the freeing of Haiti, Orson Welles produced his first stage production, Voodoo Macbeth. And Akira Kurosowa’s The Throne of Blood has been a milestone among classic movies.

Recently the Kolkata theatre scene is witnessing a spurt of Shakespeare plays. Among them is Swapnasnadhani’s Macbeth. The play has been adapted by Ujjwal Chattopadhyay. William Shakespeare, it is believed wrote The Tragedy of Macbeth sometimes in 1605-06 and the earliest performance of the play is recorded sometimes in 1611. What-so-ever, this play is regarded as the ‘bloodiest’ of all Shakespeare tragedies as there are a number of cold-blooded murders all of which are directly or indirectly committed by the ‘hero’, Macbeth.  The portions of the original that have been kept in Swapnasnadhani’s version have been aptly translated. Swapnasandhani as a very serious group involved in theatre activism always attempts to mirror the socio-political scenario prevailing in West Bengal. In this present production, nonetheless, one never fails to identify the worthless,  good-for-nothing Duncans in our polity, or the over ambitious ‘immortal’ Macbeths, or the Lady Macbeths who help Macbeths to achieve their aims and then they themselves commit suicide, or the Macduffs who remove the Macbeths from the throne and put Malcolms instead, or who the immature inept Malcolms are, who get the throne, rather by default. However, one may say that the interpretation of the play as done by Swapnasadhani without distorting the original structure, surely is one of the appropriate ways to present Shakespeare to a non-Anglo audience.

In performing in Shakespearian roles especially in the key ones, the actors are constantly challenged to keep to a form of acting that would fit in to the contemporary style of acting without treading on to melodramatics that the form of the play would always entertain. The rhyming and the lyricism in the long monologues and dialogues in the Elizabethan language tend to weigh heavily on the actors. This is equally true in translated versions as well. All the various aspects of the art of acting like,  physical movements, facial expressions, speech enunciation with appropriate diction keeping to the desired syntactical form of the compositions, voice modulations and pitch variation, have to be perfected in order to portray a  Shakespearian role such as that of Macbeth or the Lady. Undoubtedly, Koushik and Reshmi Sen have proved just that to the Bengali theatre-world. Koushik has set a standard, a benchmark, in portraying the pivotal role of a Shakespeare tragedy. The Bard had created Macbeth as the hero whose ambition turns him into a villain, and for whom he imbibes a pinch of remorse and empathy in the heart of the viewers which, as a matter of fact give the play its tragic tone –  Koushik has impeccably created this multilayered complexion of the role. Kudos – unlimited – is for him. Reshmi had a very difficult role to portray as the viewers would never have the slightest feeling for Lady Macbeth who for them is an outright villain. Among all of Shakespeare’s female characters the Lady is his cruellest and the most complicated. A lady who is ready even to discard her feminity to make her husband kill the King requires an actor who can bear a very heavy work-load on the stage. Reshmi has made it with full confidence. Praises are galore for her.

As for the others, the actor, whose name was not available, in the Porter’s role was praiseworthy. So were Siddhartha Banerjee’s Banquo, Nabanita Basu Majumdar’s Gentlewoman waiting on the Lady, Ashok Ghosh and Dibyendu Nath as the two Murderers. Kanchan Mullick’s Macduff, Sushanta Basu’s Duncan and Subhro Saurav Das’s Malcolm were a bit weak portrayals. Special mention should be made of Paramita Saha, Riddhi Sen andSudarshan Chakravarty as the three Witches. 

As Shakespeare has never elaborated on the stage-settings in his plays, it requires imaginative planning, and Soumik-Piyali’s stage and Joy Sen’s lights did well to create the perfect ambience and give the required visual support. Gautam Ghosh’s music as well as Reshmi Sen’s dress designing, too, enhanced the relevancy of the content. Koushik Sen’s directorial capabilities reached another height in this production as planning and execution were perfectly done for this magnum production.

Before signing off let me as a viewer extend my deep apologies to the team for disruption created by a fellow viewer who could not resist exchanging pleasantries with his acquaintance on the cell-phone at the middle of a scene being performed on the stage. God help us!!!!