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.