The local Bengali Association and Bengali Education Society are jointly organising a two-day Bengali drama festival here on Saturday, September 14 and Sunday, September 15 at Deshpande Hall, opposite MLA Hostel.
Two highly acclaimed dramas of Kolkata, Awddya Shesh Rajani (The last night) and Cinemar Moto (Like a movie) of well-known theatre personality and the West Bengal minister, Bratya Basu, will be staged on the occasion.
Awddya Shesh Rajani would be staged on Saturday, September 14 at 7.00 pm In the Awddya Shesh Rajani, the director Bratya Basu has paid tribute to a journey of a passionate theatre lover, late Ashim Chakraborty. The play is based on the novel written by Shyamal Gangopadhyay, with the adaptation done by the playwright Ujjwal Chattopadhyay.
The protagonist of the drama, Ashim Chakraborty, a theatre lover, actor, and director, who carried the dream of making exceptional theatre in post-colonial Bengal. He was a theatre practitioner who had failed to gather initial attention of the spectators by doing conventional productions like Jonoiker Mrityu, Nil Ghora, and Samraggni, etc.
On Sunday, September 15, Cinemar Mato, written, directed and enacted by Bratya Basu will be staged at 7.00 pm. The play dissects the journey of an art form – cinema – as opposed to that of an artist, a Rabindra Sangeet icon, an IPTA stalwart turned dissenter.
True to its title, the play starts with a movie-style projection crediting the cast and crew. The four decades of screen evolution are distinguished by songs from popular cinema – “not necessarily complementing the situational mood, but annihilating the mounting emotional catharsis in the course of the drama,” the writer-director explains. Was cinema art, or entertainment? Does art entertain? Is entertainment itself an art? These questions hound the viewer through the play that unwinds a family drama just like those movies that kept Tollywood ticking in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s.
Both the plays will be presented before the audience of Nagpur by Bratyajon (Kalindi Bratyajon), a Bengali group theatre. It is the brainchild of ace playwright and actor-director Bratya Basu. Some of the important productions of Bratyajon are Ruddhasangeet (2009), Canvasser (2011) and Byomkesh (2011), Chiro Kumar Sobha (2012), Cinemar Moto (2013) and Ke? (Who?) (2014), Boma (2015). Apart from a theatrical production, the group is active in many associated fields. An important activity of the group is to
organize an annual theatre festival.
Pradip Ganguly, Secretary of Bengali Education Society and Pradip Maitra, President of Bengali Association appealed to all Bengalis of Nagpur to ensure the success of the festival.
The entries for both the plays are strictly by invitation. The Invitation cards can be collected from the office of Bengali Education Society from 11.30 to 8.30 pm, informs Bidyut Chakraborty, secretary of the Bengali Association.
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