Première show of Jolbalika

A sequence from the play Jolbalika presented by Padatik Natya Sansad

Masum Reza's play Jolbalika depicts the story of the village dwellers whose lives are interwoven with the river. The playwright also lashes out against the ills of rural society such as gender inequality. The question he raises is: Who is more important for a rural family--a son or a daughter?

Director Shamsul Alam Bakul's approach to the play is also noteworthy. Though his characters are realistic, most of the time he has tried to capture the interest of the audience through diverse entertainment such as the rural sports. He departs from other directors in handling some of the entertaining sequences of romance, pathos and other emotions. In certain stages of the play he has used a narrator. Through narration and appealing music composition, he has deftly handled the scene when a father sacrifices his daughter to save the life of his disabled son.

Rubayet Ahmed choreography for the play is interesting.

Set designer Selim Shamsul Huda Chowdhury has created an atmosphere of a river bank through his stylistic set design. Green colour has been used for the set design.

Light designer Nasirul Haque Khokon in the first scene of the play has created a cloudy sky on the huge cyclorama by using dark-shadow effect, which was quite impressive.

Nasiruddin Sheikh has used traditional folk music trend found during the boat race for the play. Traditional folk music instruments like mandira, dhol, flute and others have been used for the music composition.

Sabil Reza Chowdhury as Ghanosham performed well. The other performers also captured attention. All in all, the premier show of Jolbalika was an evening well spent.