An accomplished stage actor’s venture into the world of screen: Sanjita in Doaansh

 

An accomplished stage actor’s venture into the world of screen: Sanjita in Doaansh

For the readers of my blog, it may be a little surprising to find this piece about a film viewing experience. The purpose of my doing this piece is to discuss an accomplished stage actor’s venture into the world of screen acting.   

It is nothing new in a stage actor facing the movie camera. So, seeing Sanjita work in her debut (?) film called Doaansh was nothing novel in it, as such. But what is fresh to experience is her style of acting. Her poignant portrayal of a character of a woman belonging to a fringe society of the Sundarbans, is indeed significantly refreshing for a theatre spectator.

The film produced by Mojotale Entertainments & Distributions is made by Sayan Bandopadhyay on the life and struggle of the Moulis, the honey-gatherers of the Sundarbans. The matriarch of one such family who had lost her husband and her son to the attacks of the tiger, as well as her daughter-in-law to the crocodile, is living a life of a boat-woman and brining-up her grand daughter who is in her youth bubbling with life. With oppressions mounting, things turn ugly and the woman delivers her way of justice to square things up.

Though the script gives not much space to Sanjita to elucidate the character of the elderly woman, but her gait, her flexing of the hands of a tired oarswoman, the subtle expressions of her eyes, twitching of her face muscles and of course her delivery of dialogues in a non-dramatic dreary tone of worn-out woman and that too in a lingo far from the urbane tongue, bring out the inner soul of the tormented character. The internal texture of roughness in the woman has been brought out in a silent mien in the last shot that has been exquisitely framed by the maker. As such close-up viewings for the theatre spectators are never possible, so the quality of performance on the part of the actor has to be stepped down. Thus, for an actor like Sanjita who has honed her stage acting to such heights, it is a challenge that requires a lot of cerebral exercise and a lot of skill to perform. And she has done her bit to perfection as much as was possible for her in the breathing space the script offered her. Such differentiating performances on screen are not much seen in established stage actors, baring a few. And as such many renowned actors of the stage have failed to put a mark on the screen.

We certainly can hope to see Sanjita on the screen in the future.         

THEATRER TRITYA PARISAR : hopefully a little stand-apart theatre journal

 

THEATRER TRITYA PARISAR : hopefully a little stand-apart theatre journal

Yet another theatre journal has been launched. This itself is on one-hand a gratifying news as it indicates an effort on the part of the publishers, who are basically theatre-workers to go in for some literary quest alongside their performance pursuits. On the other-hand there may be a factor of fright of experiencing yet another dreary exercise of going through articles that have little novelty in them. This apprehension of the reader is not unfounded as most of the theatre journals are stuffed with articles which are mostly ‘cut-and-paste’ stuffs lacking in originality.

Going through the first issue of THEATRER TRITYA PARISAR I believe that it would tread a diverse path in the future which may not be radically different, but would certainly be different, as the name suggests. The name THEATRER TRITYA PARISAR would roughly translate into ‘the third space of theatre’. As the third dimension gives a sense of volume – an extension to the length and breadth of anything we see, so one can say, it is in this case, too. The journal seems to open up a third space that is both an extension of the space we generally think about and talk about, as well as about the off-center or off-off-center perspectives of our theatre world.

But the most significant character of this periodical, quarterly, I suppose, is that it is not a mouthpiece, a term which some may resent, or a publication of a particular theatre group. It is a periodical on behalf of a group of young theatre talents who have their own theatre groups to manage, and who had joined hands to form a platform by the name of Jahanamer Samachar, which literally translates into News from Hell. The name itself suggests that these people seem to venture into areas where conventionalists would fear to step into. They are bent to go against the orthodoxy of the elitist mindset of the established. This platform was active during the Covid times with relief works and produced a very popular programme of interactions with people of theatre on the net called Anadhikar Charcha, which again loosely translates into Unwarranted Discussions. And on their completion of five years of camaraderie in Hell, Jahanamer Samachar has decided to go in prints with THEATRER TRITYA PARISAR which according to them is ‘an itinerant manifesto of Jahanamer Samachar’.

The foursome who are the mainstay of Jahanamer Samachar, Debashis Dutta of IFTA, Rakesh Ghosh of Dumdum Shabdomukdho, Atanu Sarkar of Thealight and Avi Chakraborty of Ashoknagar Natyamukh form the editorial board of THEATRER TRITYA PARISAR with Anshuman Kar, who has carved out a niche in the Bengali poetry world, as the Chief Editor.

This edition has a very important article on Badal Sircar by Rajat Das, which helps the reader to get glimpses of the person in this poet-playwright whose centenary year is in the offing. Four in-depth studies on the workings of four great theatre-makers like K N Panicker, H Kanhailal, Satyabrata Raut and Syed Jamil Ahmed give the reader a semblance of the first-hand experiences that Debashis Dutta, Atanu Sarkar, Avi Chakraborty and Rajib Bardhan, respectively, had acquired during their interactions with these four greats.

A reproduction of an episode of Anadhikar Charcha brings back a fresh memory of the rare talent of the Bengali stage Prasenjit Bardhan, whom we lost so untimely.

The third space is defined by a playlet by Chaitali Chattopadhyay; an enlightening article by Atanu Sarkar on a fringe theatre group, Mangrove Theatre and its mentor Sajal Mondal; Silchar’s theatre history in an informative article by Dipendu Das; and a review article of Candid Theatre’s Malyaban by Ashok Bose. Hindol Bhattacharya has reviewed an anthology of poems, ‘Theatre Bishoyak Kobita’ by Bratya Basu.

The journal, at least the first issue is not voluminous as is seen with some in circulation, and which poses real problems in handling the volume, let alone reading it.

Before signing off let me divulge my misgivings about the editorial which ends with a reference to Estragon’s ‘crritic’ insult in Beckett’s Waiting. And the editor dedicates the journal to ‘those spectacled college-teacher-critics’ of the Bengali theatre whose ‘roles had been perfectly guessed by Beckett seventy-five years ago’. I feel I am lucky not to be at other end of the brunt, though I am a bespectacled retired college teacher, but I consider myself a viewer who writes reviews, and not a critic (or crritic). But unfortunately, I am seen as one considered as one. May I humbly take this opportunity to inform my blog readers that the Wikipedia page on Theatre Criticism is written by yours truly. And there I have differentiated Reviews from Criticisms, categorically. A critic writes extensive articles which are deep analytical discourses of the play against the backdrop of the theatre-arts as a whole, and a reviewer simply expresses his/her instant reactions after viewing the work. I do exactly that, and what the critic does is an exercise that is beyond my capacity.

But I wonder why is there such bitterness in the minds of the editorial board of THEATRER TRITYA PARISAR against those who choose to write on the works that are staged for public viewing?