Lucky Enam, who already earned acclaims for the direction of Ami Birangana Bolchhi, has presented yet another theatre production on the biraganas [war heroines] titled Bideho.
Bideho, a Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy repertory production, was premiered on Monday at the National Theatre Hall of the academy in presence of a houseful audience.
Written by Shahman Moishan, the play upholds the agonies of war heroines who are ousted from their families, hooted in the society and above all are neglected in the question of their contribution in achieving the war of independence in 1971.
Lucky Enam and Momena Chowdhury, who have earned enormous appreciation in the monodramas Ami Birangona Bolchhi and Lal Jamin respectively as war heroines, present the miserable state of the women who were brutally tortured by Pakistani forces and their local collaborators during the war.
Another actor of the play Jyoti Sinha, who also got huge popularity enacting roles in Kahe Biragana, based on Michael Madhusudan Dutt’s Birangana Kavya, also appears in the play as a war child and sometimes as a narrator.
Set against the backdrop of today’s context after 41 years of the independence, Bidebo features war heroines Halima, enacted by Lucky, and Shantikumari, performed by Momena, who still feel identity crisis in the society as their fates during the war is looked down upon in society.
While narrating their horrendous past, the heroic women criticise the role of the state machinery in case of handling the war heroines in the post war Bangladesh.
The audience was just shaken when the skilled actresses through powerful narrations and emotional gestures accused the citizen of the country, pointing at the audience, for treating the ‘war heroines’ as ‘prostitutes’.
Such directorial compositions, introduced in theatre by German legendary director theoretician Bertolt Brecht, is a typical approach of dealing with such issues in Dhaka, observe the audience.
Many of them also said that they had watched these three actresses performing in the same manners dealing with the same issue.
‘Repetition,’ Manjuri Akhter, an audience, told New Age, saying, ‘The intension behind presenting such a subject is really commendable. But the vivid narration and portrayal of torture to the women could have been presented in some innovative way.’
Criticising the monotonous design and compositions while narrating the present and past scenes, Ziaul Hasan Joy said, ‘The actors presented many situations of the past, but the stage and set remained the same. In those cases, the production lacked in authenticity.’
Sudip Chakraborty is the set and light designer of the play.
-With New Age input
