'We practice humane theatre,' Dolly Basu

Dolly Basu

Chupkatha is an amateur theatre troupe of Kolkata. A few of their productions have received some prestigious awards in India. Recently, Chupakatha bagged the best performance award for their current production-- Dui Tarango.

In this festival, Chupkatha has staged their two latest productions--Dui Tarango and Mrs Soriano. Dolly Basu is the director as well as the main cast of both the plays in the festival.

Dolly is from Delhi. Her mother tongue is Hindi. Attracted to Bangla culture, she started to perform in Bangla plays. Dolly says, 'I grew up in Bangalee atmosphere in Kolkata. And later I married a Bangalee. I developed a thirst for Bangla plays. I worked with Asit Mukhopadhyay who wanted to perform in Hindi plays. Then we formed a new group Chupkatha, which stages popular Bangla plays in Hindi version. Aakorik is my first performance in Bangla language. Initially, I faced few problems performing in Bangla plays, but now, I am equally spontaneous in both languages on stage. We stage our plays in both languages. Dui Tarango is an exception, as the emotion and ethos of the second part of the play cannot be translated in another language.

'We practice humane theatre. We always try to deal with emotion and values in our plays. The emphasis is on family as well as social relationship. However, our productions are not full of speeches. Through quality aesthetic drama we deliver several messages relevant to the current world. And in case of acting, we follow the drama trend introduced by Russian drama legend Stanislavski. There is a demand for our plays in both the Bangla/ Hindi speaking regions. That is why we stage a good number of call shows. We usually use a simple, flexible and easily portable set so that the plays can be staged anywhere,' Dolly adds.

Commenting on the problems of theatre practitioners in India, Dolly says, 'Like other parts of the world, we are facing a quality playwright crisis. Moreover, the involvement of theatre activists in the electronic media is a major problem in Kolkata. Artistes are using theatre as a stepping stone for the entrance to electronic media. Very few have a devotion to their art, without which quality productions cannot be staged.'

Though Dolly has not yet seen enough of Bangladeshi theatre, she is favourable to the idea of introducing indigenous art form-based theatre in Bangladesh. Her troupe is also going in this direction. As she says, 'In addition to the European and Sanskrit drama trend, we should also practice quality indigenous art form-based productions. But, I think that this element should be introduced spontaneously and not in an artificial way. We are trying to present Kabigaan spontaneously in modern theatre.'