Puppets with messages

Surer Pakhi: A colourful scene from the puppet show

Two puppet shows, staged by Monwar, were held on April 10 and 11. To observed the bicentennial of legendary fairytale writer Hans Christian Andersen, the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy and the Royal Danish Embassy jointly arranged the function.

The host of the April 10 event, Hanne Tornager, the Cultural and Development Consultant sought help to translate her speech. The trademark puppet character 'Gittu', a popular puppet character introduced by Mostafa Monwar, appeared on stage to help her. Through the conversation between Gittu and Hanne and then with Danish Ambassador Niels Severin Munk and director Monwar a rapport was established with the audience. Later, popular puppet characters-- Parul and Dadu-- made their appearance.

The puppet show began with the two shows-- Kusree Hansher Chhana and Surer Pakhi -- the audience recognised the effectiveness of fairy tales in delivering universal truths with allegorical simple stories.

The first show was Kusree Hansher Chhana, an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's popular fairytale The Ugly Duckling. The show began with a scene of dawn and a duck hatching eggs. As the background scenario of the sequence, designer Monwar portrayed a calm and idyllic rural Bangladesh with symbolic blue colour effect on the cyclorama. Andersen's story had a Bangladeshi context. The story developed with the emergence from the eggs of four beautiful yellow ducklings and an ugly ash coloured one. The simple story of the ducklings, was a satire on manmade divisions on racial and caste lines. To add to the interest, a human hunter performed with the puppets.

Experienced stagehands wonderfully created each and every gesture and movement of the ducks, cats, rats and human characters through puppets on stage.

After the end of the show of Kusree Hansher Chhana, Gittu appeared to provide entertainment between the shows. With its witty dialogues and movements, Gittu had a lighter look at our habit of watching cheap entertainment on the TV channels as well the alienation of the young generation from our roots.

Subsequently, the second show-- Surer Pakhi, another adaptation from Hans Christian Andersen's story The Nightingale-- was staged. Some strong messages were delivered through this show: the difference between natural learning and bookish learning, among other elements. Again Mostafa Monwar displayed his skills of creating drama on stage through puppets.

Earlier, in his speech Mostafa Monwar said, "Nowadays, because of social turmoil children are losing their aesthetic sense. They should be entertained with more humane art forms rather than artificial ones. As fairytales always deal with purity and truth, children should be encouraged to read fairytales."