Adapted from Mahesh Dattani : SADICHHAR RANGBADAL by Bengaluru’s Smaranik

Adapted from Mahesh Dattani : SADICHHAR RANGBADAL by Bengaluru’s Smaranik

Mahesh Dattani writes plays in English and has made a distinctive style of his own in the English drama scene.  He is perhaps the only Indian playwright who has written for BBC radio apart from being the first English playwright to be awarded with Sahitya Akademi Award and that too at a very young age. He is deeply rooted to the soil that has bred his cultural being and that gives his plays a very well balanced theme touching both the worlds – Eastern and Western. He deals with very sensitive social topics that are though common, not much taken up for circumspection. 

His first full length play, Where There’s a Will written in 1986 has been translated and adapted into Bengali by the esteemed thespian-director Meghnad Bhattacharya as SADICHHAR RANGBADAL for the Bengaluru group Smaranik. Smaranik is a new group though the director, Sayandeb Bhattacharya and some other members have had exposures on the Kolkata stage earlier. No matter, the group put up a good show and proved a lot of well done home work.

The play is designated as a drawing room comedy which in the hand-out of the production also is mentioned as the ‘comedy of the last wish’. The form of the play is certainly as is designated for the play is designed in the apartment space specifically in the drawing room with bits in the bedrooms of a family. The content deals with the predicament of the family centred on a will expressing the last wishes of the head of the family. Though the theme has a pinch of murder mystery, it deals with the positions of the wife, mistress and the daughter-in-law in a patriarchal system. Whatever the description, the play is no doubt a comedy that has a strong base on the play of the dialogues. And this flavour of the Mahesh work has been kept by Meghnad in his translation with very ingenious use of the Bengali language.

The production can boast of good acting as all the members were diligent to do their bits to the best. Apart from a congested stage and faulty lighting, the other aspects of the production scored well. The dress designing needed a special mention. Lastly, it is Sayandeb who deserves applause for handling a play in its true elements.      

An Engrossing Tagore Production: Bhabna’s

BHANUDAR SANGEY

For the last two years or more there has been a spate of various productions on the Kolkata stage with Tagore in the focus. Tagore’s 150th year has prompted groups across the state to work out some presentations that would seem a fitting tribute to the Poet. And then there was a big incentive in the form of financial assistance from the central government. So we found all sorts of productions ranging from staging of his plays without any modifications to adapting his stories and letters and other writings to a credible stage version, and then there has been stage shows that break all probity by marauding, plundering and disfiguring the Poet’s creations and also his philosophy in the name of creative interpretation. However, such works luckily have not been very many and are no more seen on the Kolkata stage except one which is worst of the lot and which had a lot of fanfare at its inaugural shows. I had discussed this production in my first blog.

Recently two of the brightest Tagore works were seen in Kolkata that very strikingly shows that creative interpretation for the stage rests solely on the very good understanding of the source material together with the intellectual perspectives that had given birth to the original writings of the Poet, or for that matter any author. Interestingly both the productions are by new groups with young talents at the helm. Ushnik’s KHELA BHANGAR KHELA has been discussed in one of my earlier blogs. Here we will be discussing BHANUDAR SANGEY another very well crafted production by yet another new group, Bhabna, under the direction of Sumitro Bandopadhyay who though is quite a successful playwright in his own right has this production as his maiden directorial venture. And the hint from this presentation that the viewers have received is that he has come to stay in the realm of direction.

As a playwright Sumitro has a very simple communicating language at his command and so his plays get going easily with the viewers. In this play he has tried to juxtapose Tagore during his stay at Shillong in the 20’s of the last century, when the Poet wrote the novel Shesher Kobita and during the time when he penned the epitome of Indian modern play, Rakta Karabi with the present day life system with all its attachments and corollaries. His intrinsic study of Tagore and his works has made him take the viewers in confidence even in situations where Tagore is seen to confront the modern band music or the cell phone and the laptop or for that matter terrorism of the present brand. The viewers get a taste of the typical Santiniketan cultural ambience on one hand and on the other they confront the deleterious effects of the so-called ‘item numbers’ on the young ones. With the very well designed run of the play one confronts Nandini of Rakta Karabi, Labanya of Shesher Kobita as well as Ranu and Indira, the latter though in a different image. 

Sumitro’s creative designing has given the play a particular engrossing visual treat with many a well crafted theatrical moments. But the performance could have been better if Soumik-Piyali’s stage planning had been more imaginative. The construction on the stage had to be compromised as the new Academy stage has many things wanting. However, things could have been better thought of. Music score by Koustuv Sen Barat and choreography by Sangeeta Ghosh were praiseworthy. But all the young members of the group did their roles – and everyone did a number of characters – with full confidence. And that tells a lot about the competence of the director to build up the teamwork.  The veteran thespian Ashok Mukherjee as the Poet was in his usual mettle.

This was one production that the viewers at the end had a feel-good mood – and that is a rare exception these days.     

Nata-ranga’s JADIDONG: a commendable production

Nata-ranga is a group that has been seriously pursuing the art of theatre since long and their earnestness is reflected by their selection and staging of plays that do not merely tell the mundane stories of our daily life but have always tried to dissect out the complexities and controversies that often crop up as we move on in our lives. Sometimes we feel uncomfortable to even discuss the matters and prefer to sweep them off under the carpet. Interestingly Nata-ranga focuses on such problems and makes the viewers aware of the different ailments that spreads in our society untended. Unhappy marital life is one such agenda that we prefer to sleep upon lest the society blames incompatibility on one’s part. Their latest production JADIDONG is a dissertation on this trait of incompatibility and maladjustment that shatters an otherwise ‘good’ married life.

The present play which is written in a typical satirical form by Sohan Bandopadhyay tells the story of a couple who represents the multitude of ‘broken homes’ that we encounter in today’s world. Here the man and the woman are both well placed in their professional lives and have no strings attached. This has led both of them to have their ‘Shylock’s share’ in the building up of the home. So we find everything divided and bifurcated and that includes from the morning newspaper to every drop of the water that is supplied for the daily chores. The playwright has shown how silly things come up as points of contentions and the persons however civilised and sophisticated never yield in to give the other his or her rightful space.  Such a couple gets hold of a person from the court compounds to get their divorce procedures complete.  But this man is blatant enough to tell the truth about him being a fraudster who takes on the garb of a professional like a lawyer or an astrologer to exhort money from people in distress. But in dealing with this person the couple is subjected repeatedly to situations that point out the follies they are up to and their lack of accommodating the other’s views which in turn would have given positive results.

It would be interesting to note that the name of the play, JADIDONG, is a very important word in the Vedic wedlock mantra that puts conditions on both the groom and the bride. Sohan has deftly brought in this very vital aspect in his content.

The design of the production by Sohan has proved once again the very intense thinking process that always goes behind his every presentation. In the present work there is spectacularity and the form has a comical characteristic that has the very big chance of wandering into a light hearted clownish form. But the acting in the three roles and especially the work of Debshankar Halder as the third individual, who takes in the maximum load, prevents from that ordeal to take shape on the stage. Stage and lighting designs, music support and dress designing contribute equally to this laudable production.   

MORE OF TAGORE

MORE OF TAGORE

One finds quite a number of productions on Tagore being staged lately and all related to the sesquicentennial celebration which is being stretched to a two-year happening, it seems. Though the anniversary had passed off quite sometimes back the doles offered by the central government have come in late and thus the groups had to have some preparation time. This late crop of productions that hit the Kolkata stage is a mixed bag of fares that range from plays written by Tagore to adaptations and presentations based on his writings.    

Bratyajan in their festival themselves presented Tagore’s comedy CHIROKUMAR SABHA under the direction of one of the most distinguished directors of today’s Bengali theatre, Debesh Chattopadhyay. His last work DEBI SARPOMASTA had enthralled the audience due solely to his excellent directorial competence. But sadly one finds not an iota of a director’s presence not to speak of any suggestion of his work in this production which happens to be the fourth of this group and the first not under the tutelage of Bratya Basu. Why was the script done by Tagore himself not followed was difficult to comprehend. It was pathetic to watch the members of the group in different roles simply at loss on the stage not knowing what to do except blurting out the lines. The presentation failed miserably and the viewers missed the Tagorean touch that gives this comedy its time-defying popularity. 

Adrija Dasgupta and Senjuti Bagchi have prepared a script for Uhinee’s BEJE OTHEY PANCHAME SWAR that mainly tries to focus on the socialistic thoughts of the poet. In doing so the script is full of long excerpts from his different essays and letters with a few songs and poems, and bits of dramas inserted here and there. And so the script takes up the look of a seminar lecture rather than a stage presentation. Choosing from Tagore’s repertoire needs a lot of extensive study and it becomes rather frivolous if portions of his writings are taken at random depending on a few references or phrases that match up to the theme in mind. The bits of the plays that are presented are more as illustrations of the ‘lectures’ rather than as examples of the dramatic creations. The dialogues are delivered as if in one shot with no pretence of acting with the actors rambling off their lines in faulty intonations and pronunciations. Adrija who had proved her directorial acumen in a number of productions of the group failed in the basic planning in the present production. The stage design initially went well with the run of the play but later the stage with its piled up props was a distraction for the viewers. But lighting design, if there was any, was the biggest culprit.

Gobordanga Naksha’s GHARE BAIRE is one of the better fares that the viewers were able to enjoy among these late sesquicentennial celebrations. Arindam Sengupta’s adaptation of the novel did not attempt to override the original and so for the uninitiated viewer it was pure Tagore though abridged.  Ashis Das, who has created a niche for himself in the Bengali theatre world, has reached another high mark in his career in this production. This is one novel of Tagore that not many have attempted to stage. Ashis with his sheer grit and a very dedicated group situated far away from the city has taken up this challenge that many a well-placed Kolkata group has not attempted. And the brightest point is that there is not an iota of Satyajit influence in the entire production. The characters have been very well presented with the right emphasis to each. The roles have been performed keeping true to the script. Sanchayan Ghosh’s stage though well designed was not fully utilized. Badal Das’s lights and Swapan Banerjee’s music support were just adequate. Panchanan Manna’s make-up and Debashis Dutta’s dress were perfectly done.

Raja Bhattacharya’s Blank Verse wanted to project the multifarious problems that are gnawing the society today through his play THE GREAT NEW LIFE which is primarily aimed as a tribute to Tagore. But in doing so the viewers are led to a milieu of incidents that seem to lose the bearings, and in the process Tagore gets a backseat. But the commendable part of the production is the perfect synchronised acting of the members and a very well executed dress designing, stage, lighting and music planning.

Beadon Street Subham has been working with children and teen-agers since the last twenty five years. As a tribute to the poet they produced two plays. The first one being the poet’s own DAKGHAR and the second one is Subhashis Gangopadhya’s JAKAN DAKGHAR AACHHYE AMAL NEI, a play based on ‘Dakghar’. Under the able direction of Pankaj Munshi the young boys and girls seemed to love doing their allotted roles in the first play and that exactly what the Poet had tried to say all along in his different works. The basic spirit of the play was very well portrayed. The stage planning was though a bit cliché ridden. In the second play Subhashis had brought about a social angle that is very much evident in the present times. He proposes that instead of Amal if Sudha was to grow up in Madhab Datta’s household, she would have to be confined in the room because of the various social stigma that imprison the girl child in our society. Subhashis had kept to Tagore’s play as far as establishing the spirit of the play that we mentioned earlier. It was no need to make Sudha bed-ridden due to a fire in the flower garden. However, such a Tagore based play had not been witnessed in the Tagore celebrations that had just passed off.