Theatre Art Unit's drama festival

A major achievement of the festival was that the organiser managed to attract the audience to a new theatre venue. The second aim --to present new standard productions in the festival-- was not met successfully.

Two new plays Brand and Projapati, staged by the Centre for Asian Theatre (CAT) and Natyakendra respectively, were well received by the audience.

Interestingly both of the plays are the translation of foreign plays, but of different genre. Ibsen's play Brand, with its several theological and philosophical debates, was well crafted by director-designer Kamaluddin Nilu. On the other hand, Projapati was an entertaining comedy presented by Natyakendra. Tariq Anam Khan is the translator-director of the play.

Shongkranti, Aranyak Natya Dal production and Golapjan, Theatre Art Unit productions are not new plays, yet are still in demand. Both the plays present our decaying culture.

In Shongkranti, the playwright-director Mamunur Rashid portrays the realistic scenario of the plight of village artistes known as Shong, living in the greater Mymensingh region. In this play we also see a common feature of the Machiavellian feudal lords who try to restrict the art.

Written and directed by SM Solaiman, the play Golapjan presents the change in the traditional lifestyle of Dhakaiyas with the advancement of technology.

But a question that remains unanswered is about the Kolkata groups. The high expectations from Kolkata-based group Anya Theatre, for instance, were belied by their lukewarm production Shodhbodh. Clearly the performance of the group, steered by Bibhas Chakrobarti, was not up to the mark.

The theatre group's second production-- Monoj Mitra's social play Nakchhabita --deals with the impact of conflict between politics and family relationships. It was a better production than the earlier one.

But, they are still highly influenced by the trend introduced by Shombhu Mitra in the 1960s. The advancement of theatre during the last four decades is not found in those productions. Chupkatha, another group from Kolkata, also followed the same trend; however, their productions Dui Taranga and Mrs Soriano compared favourably to Anya Dal's productions. The actress in both the plays, Dolly Basu attracted the audience with her performance.

The organisers could have included four more local productions instead of including four ordinary plays by the Kolkata groups. In fact, to make the drama festival a colourful one, only quality plays from Kolkata or standard Bangladeshi productions should be included in the festivals.