NIHSANGA SAMRAT & KALLUMAMA: two significant works by Debsankar Haldar

NIHSANGA SAMRAT & KALLUMAMA: two significant works by Debsankar Haldar

In the last few months the Bengali stage-goers had the opportunity of witnessing two very significant dramas starring one of the most versatile actors of the present day, Debsankar Haldar, in two very difficult characters. Paikpara Indraranga’s Nihsanga Samrat and Ushnik’s Kallumama are two very different dramas both in form as well as in content. While the first one is a stage-adaptation of Sunil Ganguli’s novel of the same name based on the life and times of the father of modern Bengali theatre, Natyacharya Sishirkumar Bhaduri, the later one is a solo-acting play written by Ishita Mukherjee. The two dramas naturally have two different characters and the actor predictably, fulfils all the parameters to portray the two. But what strikes the viewers is the fact that in both the dramas, especially in Kallumama, the characters have multiple shades and tones and Debsankar excels in portraying these diversifications on the stage.

Debesh Chatterjee’s adaptation of the Sunil novel is arguably one of the best adaptations on the Bengali stage in the recent past. He has created a collage on the life and struggles of the Natyacharya more as a critical analysis rather than as a biography. The innovativeness of the dramatist has explored the personal life of the legendary thespian with a parallel reference to the characters he portrayed on the stage. Three distinct facets of the persona of Sishirkumar have been shown – one being his personal life and struggles, the second being his interactions with the characters he portrayed, while the third is his relationship with the then Bengali theatre-world. It is a challenge for any actor to do the job and for Debsankar in spite of his versatility is no exception. His power of memorising lines mesmerises the audience and he does a commendable job, no doubt. His ability to take a huge workload is one of the factors that have distinguished him from any other of his creed. But there were signs of fatigue at times especially when he portrays the thespian in the various roles that he had performed. The great actor through these performances had introduced the present day low-key form of stage acting but Debsankar could not bring out these subtleties. Nonetheless, at the end of the day Debsankar could achieve the admiration of his viewers.

This admiration was double folded in and as Kallumama in the play of the same name. This portrayal of a simpleton turning into a Dada due to socio-economic reasons can boast as one of his best works on stage. It would not be improper to mention that at a point of time when Debsankar’s works showed signs of weariness and were almost stereotype, this particular production came about as a windfall for his ardent admirers. Ishita has constructed the character in episodic segments thus each segment has its own protagonist who is the same person but with a mutated character. These changes have been effected by Debsankar with the same dynamism in every instance thus proving without the least doubt his ability to handle a vast spectrum of characters. It was an absolutely astounding performance and should be rated high in all standards.

Before signing off it should be mentioned that no performance by any individual can sparkle if the co-artists and the other departments of the production too, does not keep up to the same high benchmark. So credits for Debsankar should also be shared with Debesh Chatterjee and Ishita Mukherjee together with the other members of the two groups. Both the director-cum-playwrights have provided enough space in their respective plays for the actor to improvise and cater the best fare to the Bengali audience. 

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.  

SWAPNASANDHANI’s Thana Theke Aaschhi

SWAPNASANDHANI’s Thana Theke Aaschhi

Almost fifty years back a distinguished Tollywood director Hiren Nag did a unique job in his film Thana Theke Aaschhi, an adaptation by Ajit Ganguly of J B Priestley’s An Inspector Calls, by portraying the ever glamorous Uttam Kumar in a most unattractive role of a surrealist police inspector. The film was a hit and till date it has a large viewership whenever it comes up on the screen though another film of the same name has recently been produced with all the massalla of today’s entertainment. In the end-70’s director Shyamal Sen staged the same Ganguly adaptation with Ajitesh Bandopadhyay and Tripti Mitra, the two of the most sought after names of the Bengali theatre of those times in two pivotal roles. It would be worthwhile to note that Bengali theatre during that point of time reached a turning point with a couple of productions, one of which was Soumitra Chatterjee’s Naam Jibon with himself and Liliy Chakraborty in the lead, and the other one being this Shyamal Sen’s  Thana Theke Aaschhi.   As if to carry on the legacy Kaushik Sen and his Swapnasandhani presented the same drama after about twenty five years against the present socio-political scenario.

The Inspector Teenkori Haldar who has no real existence turns up at the house of a big business tycoon who is all ready to get a nominated Rajya Sabha seat with the blessings of the ruling echelons, to investigate a case of suicide of a young woman. Gradually the well protected devious past of each member of the household gets exposed. Kanchan Mullick does a sterling job in the role of the Inspector Teenkori Haldar. It would not be a hyped comment if one declares him a far better fit in the role than the great screen hero. As I have commented in a review article that comparing the two one finds Kanchan’s portrayal has de-glamousised the Teenkori Haldar image and yet has glorified the character far enough. 

The storyline is known to most of the viewers, courtesy the Uttam Kumar starrer, yet the viewers seem to happily accompany Teenkori in his investigating job of ascertaining the reasons that led to the suicide of the girl, and in the process unravel the unscrupulous lives of the so-called privileged.  Kaushik’s dexterous presentation does the magic and in the end the viewers get their worth of money. The present socio-political and economic situation has been deftly referred to thus giving the production its relevance in the present scenario. Sanchayan Ghosh’s stage contributed a lot to the success of the production as was Joy Sen’s lights.

[Due to very personal reasons there has been a far too large absence of fresh blogs on the recent productions on the Kolkata stage and the backlog will earnestly be dealt with.]

JOJOK’S E AABORAN

JOJOK’S  E AABORAN

For a theatre production to score at the box-office it seems the cast should include names that can fetch money regardless of what is being offered on the stage. This is shocking as we the Bengali viewers boast of being intellectually an advanced creed! This was evident in the staging of E AABORAN by Jojok where hardly a handful of viewers were present to witness a very neatly designed theatre production that could be an ideal example of a perfect theatrical presentation for the students of drama. The students of theatre could have had a first-hand experience of the perfect working relationship that a director would get to enjoy with the playwright. If the dramatist is equipped with the sense of the stage and the art of transforming the written play on to the stage, then only can the director work out his scheme of presenting the play. Ujjwal Chattopadyay is one of such distinguished playwrights of the present times whose sense of the stage is pretty strong and so his plays have scored more success than others. The veteran actor-director Dulal Lahiri has been able to exercise a lot of his imagination and acumen, thus making the production a grand success.

The story centres round an elderly couple who after losing their son tries to hold the hands of anyone who comes across in their life as their own. Dulal Lahiri’s acting is a relic of the great classical form of stage acting which unfortunately is in the wane now-a-days. It was a delight watching him moving about in a stoop with his hands locked at the back and speaking out in a baritone with all the modulations and intonations that very intensely construct an aged man who though has lost his son fights to stay put in a make-belief world.  The viewers get the bonus of his songs which were a treat for them, no doubt. A number of exquisitely designed sequences would stay for long in the memories of those fortunate ones who were present to see the drama. Uttiyo Jana’s lights had an important role to play and Swapan Banopadhyay’s music acceded to the ambience of the play. Debabrata Maity’s stage was a bit too cumbersome and the kitchen reminded one of the railway platform tea-stalls. But this apart, Jojok’s E AABORAN is an important production worthy of taking note of. 

BRATYA BASU RETURNS WITH A BANG!!!

BRATYA BASU RETURNS WITH A BANG!!!

For the last three years almost, the theatre viewers of the Bengali stage lived in apprehension of losing the most talented playwright-and-actor-and-director of this generation in the mire of politics and related administrative responsibilities. Bratyajan in the mean time had produced four better-to-be-forgotten plays after its inaugural grand success with RUDDHASANGEET. With their fifth production they have once again a gate-crashing play to boast of. CINEMAR MOTO is Bratya Basu’s latest and he is back in his typical style and with a Bang, of course, though the play is surely of a different character than his previous works. The play is a tribute, on the other hand, to the Indian cinema (actually the Indian fiction films) celebrating its centenary year.

Bratya’s plays are unique in the sense that they play with the psyche of the viewers and as such there are unforeseen twists, bends and curves that jolt the viewers and make them sit up. His characters are not very uncommon and they communicate with the viewers easily but it is the unexpected trait in their natures or in the situations that gives the Bratyaesque colour to his plays. Though he has his signature well etched in the present play especially in his dialogues, the structure and form did not match up to his previous works, particularly in his distribution and interplay of his characters. The character of Dipayan played by Pijush Ganguly could have been made to come out of the mould of a narrator of the history of cinema in our country and contribute to the development of the drama. The role of Maitreyi played by Poulomi Bose has been underplayed by the dramatist and could have been made to play an anti-thesis to the mother played with her typical mannerisms by Anasua Majumdar. The final scene of the son and the mother is undoubtedly one of the best examples of theatrical climactic situations viewers have not seen for long. Bratya, the playwright, raises the tension to a crescendo where the viewers are treated with the best of theatrical moments without having the excesses of melodrama. This is, perhaps, by far the most excellent performance of Bratya, the actor, on stage. The way he carried the role of the son throughout the play would remain in the annals of Bengali theatre as an illustration of method-acting at its best.

The production can boast of being an ideal one for exhibiting meticulously planned stage venture. A very imaginative yet very logical planning by Bratya, the director, could produce such magnificent results on the stage. The use of slides in the manner of the magic lanterns and the use of old film songs intermittently speak of creative ingenuity of the director.

This was a play that would be discussed for long by the theatre freaks of Bengal and would contribute in asserting faith in one of the most loved and admired theatre persons of today.

      

TWO TAGORE PIECES BY TWO WOMAN DIRECTORS

TWO TAGORE PIECES BY TWO WOMAN DIRECTORS

After a surfeit of Tagore based productions for the last two years the viewers had to some extent developed an antipathy, sort of, towards such productions. And to be candid the productions mostly did not merit much appreciation and were a ploy to acquire some kind of a dole from government agencies on the occasion of the sesquicentennial celebrations of the Bard. 

Yet another and I believe perhaps the last of the crop has been staged by Uhinee in the form of an adapted version of RAJA. Tagore himself had done a ‘stage-friendly’ version of this very difficult play and had christened it as ARUPRATAN. One wonders why this modified form of the play was not attempted by the team and instead an adaptation by Debashis Majumdar was done. This group a few months earlier had not very successfully staged a show based on different writings of the Poet (MORE OF TAGORE blog dt 5.12.12). This time, too, the production failed to impress the viewers.  Nothing seemed to click right and even director Adrija Dasgupta the pivot of the team failed miserably in performing both in delivering her dialogues as well as in singing the songs. Sheer exertion seemed to have taken its toll. She is definitely capable of better performance as have been proved in her earlier works. Her directorial work had redeeming features in the beginning though the use of the aisle of the auditorium speaks of no novelty. But the absence of any innovative elements in direction as the play progressed made the production a very dull run-of-the-mill exercise on the stage. The use of the different Tagore songs could not alleviate the plight of the viewers.

On the other hand PARULBON-E ROBI by Nirbak Obhinoy Akademi under the very able direction of Suranjana Dasgupta was a real treat for the viewers. This production, of course, is not one of the last crops of Tagore euphoria and certainly is not a result of an exercise to join in the band-wagon. I missed the earlier shows that were very limited in number, and so I made it this time. And I have been rewarded. The production may not be termed as a play in the strict sense as there are no fixed characters except that of Parul and there are no defined scenes, as such. The form depicted by Suranjana is rather a visual transcription of the correspondences that took place between an unknown young lady Parul Roy and the Poet during the last six to seven years of the latter’s life. Sharmila Moitra’s brilliant script, worked out basically from the letters together with Tagore’s other writings and different songs, brought out yet another facet of the Poet’s personality as well as the predicaments of young Parul coming from a very ordinary Bengali home with the strapping of the typical lower middle class values. She is portrayed bereft of any emotional innuendoes as is Tagore portrayed without the bogey of reverence that is usually found in such portrayals. Suranjana’s innovative powers have given shape to the script and thus an excellent production is that what the viewers are rewarded with. Every one of the actors did commendably and the co-ordination between them brought out the meaning of the moments admirably. Kathakali as Parul was superb in all respects of acting. She was so free in her deliveries, her movements, her use of space, and of course, her songs interspersed between her dialogues that viewers would certainly remember her work. The songs were executed perfectly by the actors and the liberties taken did not exceed limits. Sayan Bandopadhyay’s songs were an asset to the production as was the beautiful moments created by the director.

P.S. Theatre Workshop instituted Satyen Mitra Award for best original play for the year 2012 was awarded to Sharmila Moitra for PARULBON-E ROBI. Being a member of the jury I fully endorsed in the jury meeting  the view of the majority i.e. two of the three jury members and nominated her for the award though I had not seen the play till then. Fortunately before the date of the award giving ceremony I had the opportunity to see the play. I once again endorsed the views of the jury with a capital E after seeing the play. Though it is not a drama in the strictest sense I believe that Sharmila deserves the award for her originality in scripting the Tagore-Parul episode. So, I congratulate Sharmila Moitra for achieving this prestigious award.     

RECENT PRODUCTIONS ON THE CALCUTTA STAGE

RECENT PRODUCTIONS ON THE CALCUTTA STAGE

Of the recent happenings on the Calcutta stage a number of productions are worth discussing. Of these, in order of chronology comes Ballygunge Bratyajon’s ARDHANGINI, Ballygunge Swapnasuchona’s BELASHESE KOLAHAL, Howrah Bratyajon’s JAYOMAAN and Barasat Anushiloni’s CHHAYABRIKSHA. 

Ballygunge Bratyajon is a new team that together with three more groups have the brand name of Bratyajon and of course, the blessings of Bratya Basu. Their first production ARDHANGINI is an adaptation of Somerset Maughm’s The Constant Wife. The adaptation by Utpal Jha had also been staged with modifications by Meghnad Bhattacharya by a Bangaluru group sometimes in 2011. However, the present production scores its marks because of the very good standard of production on the whole as well as for perfectly bringing out the subtle nuances of the comedy of manners. Bijoy Mukherjee who has done his directorial debut in this play is an established producer of theatre with the professional touch that is not frequently found in the theatre world of this part of our country. His production of Kanyadaan under the banner of Swapnasuchona, with Bratya Basu directing the play apart from doing the bully’s role has remained a mile-stone in this world. Bijoy has proved himself in this new role though attention to details is wanting. Each member acted in their respective roles with perfect timing and almost faultless coordination. The production was able to convey the message that Maugham had given many many years before the movement for economic emancipation of the women folks had taken shape.

Bijoy Mukherjee’s Swapnasuchona, the team mentioned earlier is more a production company rather than a theatre-group. Rechristened as Ballygunge Swapnasuchona, the organisation has produced BELASHESE KOLAHAL, a play by Kajol Chakraborty and drirected by Sohini Sengupta. The play tells the story of a mundane middle-class life reaching its fag end to realise that dreams have remained unfulfilled, and in the despair finds simple reasons to rejoice and celebrate life.  The viewers at the end are thus gifted with a sense of well-being  – an experience rarely enjoyed after the curtains. Veteran thespians Swatilekha Sengupta and Biswajit Chakraborty have lived up to their names while the others perfectly worked out their individual roles. Tapan Sinha’s music played an important role in the production. But Sohini’s directorial venture did not have the finesse to deliver an unblemished piece of work. 

Howrah Bratyajon is yet another group with the popular brand-name. Their first venture, JAYOMAAN, is a play by Debashis Biswas, who is also the director of the play, and is based on a story by Amitabha Samajpati. The play portrays such a negative face of the society that one feels a sense of hopelessness till a positive character excellently played by the director comes on to the stage. But sadly this character turns to be surrealistic. Other characters are not well distributed and fail to build up a coherent storyline. However, the production can be proud of Tannistha Biswas who does a magnificent job in the role of a tormented young girl. The liberty taken to introduce obscene words in English cannot be justified and leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Barasat Anushiloni’s CHHAYABRIKSHA is a play by the veteran Debkumar Bhattacharya and tells the story of the clandestine deeds of an organisation set up to facilitate brain-drain and leave the country bereft of intelligent persons. The play is directed jointly by Bijoy Mukherjee and Subir Mukherjee – a feat not seen in recent times. But the play itself is very weak in content and form, thus the viewers find little elements of interest to watch and viewing becomes drudgery. Acting is mediocre and even extends to amateurish performances. Production, too, is very unprofessional and that is very sad as the onus lies on no other than Bijoy Mukherjee whose earlier productions smacked of immaculate elegance. The most disappointing part is the brochure where umpteen horrible mistakes in the English language have put the credentials of the group in question. I cannot but resist from illustrating one such devil. In describing the virtues of someone who rejects devious wealth for human values, it states, “.... avaricious, honest, dedicated....”.