ANTONY SAUDAMINI: a musical by Purba Paschim

ANTONY SAUDAMINI: a musical by Purba Paschim

My earlier blog was on a drama that had been a hit Uttam Kumar starrer almost fifty years back. My present blog also is about a drama that had been a super-duper hit film starring Uttam Kumar once again in the lead role. Sunil Banerjee in the late 60s had made Antony Firingee with the super star in the role of the Portuguese kobiyal or an oral-lyricist and Tanuja in the role of his Bengali wife. The film was an instant hit and remains so till date with the songs sung by Manna Dey to the tune of Anil Bagchi haunting every Bengali psyche. Interestingly a drama titled Antony Kobiyal was also a hit production at that time at the Kasi Biswanath Mancha with the thespian Sabitabrata Dutta in the title role and the veteran actor Jawahar (Sulal) Ganguly as Bhola Moira which in the film was done by Asit Baran. But fairly speaking the drama we are discussing, Antony Saudamani by Purba Paschim is entirely a fresh work with Ujjwal Chattopadhyay doing the script.

The play had been designed as a musical and the presenter informs the audience that the storyline has been developed from the different tales many of which have come up through various hearsays, and of course, from figments of imagination of the story-teller who in this case is the playwright. So for the viewers there was no compulsion to corroborate what is being portrayed on the stage with the few facts that are available to the historians. It was a feast for the eyes and the ears as the production tend to concentrate on the visual and aural elements. Such a musical production impose a big challenge for any team and Purba Paschim meets it with flair as three very good actor-singers portray the three pivotal roles of Antony, portrayed by Anirban Bhattachaya, the wife Saudamani, done by Gargi Roychoudhury, and Bhola Moira by Rajat Ganguli. The play has been developed in the opera mould and so traditional Bengali musical instruments have been arranged by Dhiren Das to accompany the various songs on the stage and the complementary background music has been aptly scored by Murari Roychoudhury.

Ujjwal’s script has many a slip which does not conform to the high standard of dramaturgy that the recent works of this play-writ have presented. There were instances where dramatic contrasts between two characters could be built up but Ujjwal preferred to remain a simple story-teller. This work of his instead suffered from affectations of employing very stale dramatic elements that the viewers of the present do not feel comfortable with any more. Mention is worth for Indraneel Ghosh’s art with Bilu Dutta’s stage and Sudip Sanyal’s lights. Soumitra Mitra’s overall directorial work is praiseworthy though many a slip like someone entering the scene with a pen tucked in his pocket or the prize currency notes made into a garland for Antony depicting Gandhi’s portrait speak of carelessness that can never be pardoned in a production of such a big proportion.