The legacy of Liberation War in theatre

A scene from Payer Awaj Pawa Jay. Courtesy: Theatre

During the Liberation War, very few plays depicted the freedom fight directly, such as Biplobi Bangladesh directed by Khairul Bashar, Prothom Jatra directed by Mamunur Rashid, and a few others. The plays were staged in different camps of the freedom fighters. In addition, Mostafa Monwar used to present a puppet show and theatre activists who worked in Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra (SBBK) presented the war directly in radio plays to encourage freedom fighters.

However, after independence, no stage plays directly focussed on the Liberation War. In his thesis paper titled "Socio-political reality in post-liberation Dhaka centric stage drama (1972- 2000)", Salim Mozahar has found that the spirit of the Liberation War has rather played a prominent role in our drama trend. Salim has found that playwrights have asked several questions--Why did we take part in the Liberation War? and so on--several times in the plays to express the anguish or dissatisfaction after Liberation. Salim said, "The spirit of the Liberation War has been captured effectively in the plays by Abdullah Al Mamun, Syed Shamsul Haq, SM Solaiman and others, most of which were written till the 1980s."

With the passage of time, the presentation of the spirit of Liberation War changed in stage plays. Nowadays, there are few plays, which directly express the spirit of Liberation War in the same way as in popular plays such as Payer Awaj Pawa Jay, Ekhono Kritodash, Joy Jaoayanti, Tomrai and Juddho Ebong Juddho.

Anthropologist Victor Turner in his idea of "Social Drama" says that after a certain period of a crisis social drama can play two roles--to compel schism between the opposing force or to compel reintegration. Socio-political milieu should be transparent enough to analyse the crisis and specify the role the social drama will play. Otherwise the plays will be the expression of oversimplification and polarisation of a critical crisis and thus will not play the role of social drama properly.

Acclaimed director Syed Jamil Ahmed, a professor at Department of Theatre and Music of Dhaka University, who will present a seminar paper on "Theorisation on Theatre in Place of War" at Manchester University in April 2005, said, "It is obvious that the theatre movement in our country is the output of our independence. The spirit of the Liberation War has been reflected implicitly in our plays. Then why is it not coming forth explicitly in our theatre? My hypothesis says that after so many years of liberation we are still confronted with some basic questions such as the question of the nature of our nationalism, events of 1971, and the roles of leaders during the Liberation War and post-independence time. That is why I think, to avoid any further crisis the playwrights intentionally or unintentionally avoided the facts of the Liberation War in the social drama."

Theatre personality Aly Zaker has also presented many seminar papers on this topic. According to him, "In Bangladesh, because of our independence occasional theatre practice has got the form of a regular performing art. In any medium, it is really tough to depict an authentic feature of war. In most cases it becomes an oversimplified presentation of complexity and loses its aesthetic value. After the Second World War all the popular plays dealing with the war such as Waiting for Godot, Look Back in Anger and others do not directly depict the War. Rather through the emotion or disappointment of people, successful playwrights like Samuel Beckett, John Osborne and others have presented the impact of it. In Bangladesh, it is a well used technique by the dramatists."

Writer-director of the play Ekatturer Pala, one of the most popular stage plays on Liberation War, Nasiruddin Yousuff said, "The aim of our Liberation War is emancipation. That is why any play that delivers the message of freedom bears the spirit of Liberation War in an implicit way. After the 34 years of liberation, it is really tough to present the real picture of our freedom fight in the present socio-political turmoil. Besides, I believe each and every group should have at least one stage play that delivers the message of the Liberation War to the new generation."

Yousuff's comment needs to be taken seriously. This will go a long way in giving the younger generation an authentic picture of the freedom fight.