BRATYAJON’S INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL

BRATYAJON’S INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL

Bratyajon organised their second theatre festival terming it Bratyajon International Theatre Festival 2013. They justified their claim by roping in three groups from abroad. Last year they had brought in a group from Bangladesh. This year apart from that country one team from Nepal and another from Italy were invited. Then there were groups from Assam, Kerala, Maharashtra and Manipur together with one from North 24 Parganas and two from Kolkata one of which was Bratyajon themselves.  A total of eleven plays were staged in the seven-day festival held at the Star Theatre of which I saw six. The festival was dedicated to the great actress Binodini Dasi on her sesquicentennial birth celebration. It was a very aptly deserved homage to a magnificent personality of the stage, indeed.

The one production that stood out amongst all that were presented in the festival and one that would remain for long in the minds of those who were fortunate to see it was the inaugural presentation, Imphal’s Chorus Repertory Theatre’s ASHIBAGEE ESHEI, a play created de novo from Henrik Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken by one of the few geniuses of the modern Indian stage, Ratan Thiyam in 2008.  Ibsen’s theme and not his form was what Ratan had taken his inspiration. According to him, “….this piece of work concentrates only on the thematic content. It does not follow the concept of either realistic plot or normal structure. The performance is designed to express the internal entanglement of characters without distorting the original idea in a different plane with selected dialogues without a change from the original text. In this piece of my work, I just wanted to feel a different Ibsen with imagery, fantasy and ecstasy which he had created in this play; far away from realistic conventional mould where the performance becomes more subtle, symbolic, suggestive and stylized according to the demand of the content. It was not easy for me to prepare a performance text for this. ” Yes, this was a very difficult task and Ratan excelled. It was simply a magnificent magic, as though, was being performed on the stage. Meitei language was no bar for the viewers to be struck in awe. The designing of the play with each of the departments like dress, make-up, lights, ambient music, and stage was perfectly executed. Apart from these it was the utilization of space on the stage that a student of theatrics should have gained a lot if they had chanced to witness the presentation. ‘Thematic lighting’ was interpreted on the stage and it was a fresh experience for the Kolkata viewers.  

It was my first experience to see a Nepalese production, and I was impressed. Majipa Lakhe, presented by Shilpi Theatre from Kathmandu is a mythical play based on a Newari folk character that in the myths happens to be a demon. Every year a festival in the form of Indrajatra is held in the streets of Kathmandu to celebrate this demon as he is believed to help people in distress. The play has been presented in the form of a street show and the director Yubaraj Ghimire used a number of dramatic elements that help the viewers to grasp the happenings on the stage as the language of the play is foreign. And the viewers enjoyed the presentation. Music played an important part and Nepali folk with modern Western brought out the perfect effect.

The group from Naples, Italy – Teatro Stabile di Napoli – received the maximum of fan-fare and coverage in the press as the director Cristina Donadio is a familiar name in Italian cinema. Her troupe produced I CLYTEMNESTRA – THE VERDICT (lo, Clitemnestra - il verdetto), written by Valeria Parrella, a very talented young playwright of Italy. Based on Agamemnon one of the tragedies written by the Greek tragedian Aeschylus in one of his trilogies, The Oresteia,.  She has transported Agamemnon and Clytemnestra to modern day Naples and portrays Agamemnon as a Mafia boss. But whatever, nothing was intelligible from what was presented on the stage for the Kolkata viewers except for those few who knew Italian. A totally verbose drama with almost no other theatrical skills was, in fact, a very big disappointment for the audience. Language is, of course, a very important element but not the most if one creates a form that is able to convey to a foreign viewer what the play wants to tell.  This Italian production failed totally to communicate with the viewers. The only gain was to see Cristina act on the stage as she is that famous actor who worked with Fellini in one of his films and also had walked out of the film as she (she was in her teens, then) did not like to sit through the shooting and listen to the man’s directions.

Theatre Platform from North 24 Parganas presented two short plays – SOMOYJAN and KHAJANA AAMI AAR AASBO NA, both written by Bratya Basu. The first one tells a story of a young man on a tour of the past with his girl-friend in a time-machine. And in the process they get to know the hidden and sacrilegious past of their parents. The play had very little theatrical elements and a very inapt and unimaginative handling by the director Debashis Roy made the production a very mediocre one. The second production, though a forty minute one, was engrossing more because the playwright had introduced a number of psychological twists that made the viewers to get themselves involved in the situation presented on the stage. This once again demonstrates the powerful dramatist in Bratya. The story centres round an author and her reader whom she involves in building up her latest story. The actors did their parts justice. Debashis did his directorial job earnestly following the playwright and so was successful in this production.

Ramajit Kaur and her The Creative Arts presented an all-woman production BAAWRE MANN KE SAPNE as the concluding presentation of the Festival.  According to the brochure this group from Kolkata focuses on ‘Theatre as Therapy’ with the actors building up their characters from their personal experiences. Ramanjit had associated the characters in a story-line with whose help they interact with one another and thus express their angst, distress, jealousy, secrets and such other states of mind. But what strikes the viewers is the way she had used the theatrical elements like lights, music, stage, dress and such other to build up the play on the stage. The play ended with the cast distributing laddus that were a part of the props to the viewers. This viewer presented the laddu he had received to the director for a commendable job.

The last day also saw one of the most popular stage actors of the present times, Debsankar Halder speaking on acting as the Bisnu Basu Memorial Lecture. Those who missed the lecture did miss a very important speech that came extempore from within the thinking actor.

Before signing off, a word about Star Theatre – it is absolutely not fit for theatre viewing. It is a typical cinema hall with high back rest and reclining seats. One has to strain especially in the front rows to view the happenings on the stage. It is sad that a heritage theatre hall that had been restored and renovated has not been made compatible with theatre viewing. In the inaugural speech the Convenor of the Festival Bratya Basu who also happens to be the State Education minister appealed to the Mayor of Kolkata to name the theatre after Binodini Dasi. This proposal everyone present was happy to support. In this connection another piece of information would be quite inspiring for all theatre lovers. Cristina Donadio announced to undertake a project to film the life and times of Notee Binodini Dasi. The society and her male consorts deprived her from everything a successful person desires and even had maligned her for her social background but never having paused or falter to take every possible advantage from her. Bratyajon should be given its due share of indebtedness, too, for having focusing this great thespian to the world at large.