Ganga Jamuna Theatre Fest
Three historical plays to be staged
Three historical plays featuring communal conflicts will be staged today at the three venues of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy as part of the ongoing Ganga Jamuna Theatre Festival.
Aranyak Natya Dal will stage Mayur Shinghashon at the National Theatre Hall; Samay Sanskritik Gosthi will stage Bhager Manush at the Experimental Theatre Hall and Universal Theatre will stage Mahatma at the Studio Theatre Hall.
Mannan Hira’s Mayur Shinghashon highlights the ordeal of religious minority groups experienced in the 1960s through the tragic story of a Hindu actor of a rural jatra troupe.
Directed by Shah Alam Dulal, the play reflects on the similar sufferings experienced by a number of minority groups in the ‘60s. Many patriots belonging to the minority communities in those days faced discrimination and injustice from the fundamentalist rulers was reproduced through Dilip Das, the protagonist of the play.
Samay Sanskritik Goshthi’s production Bhager Manush is an adaptation of a popular Urdu short story ‘Toba Tek Singh’ written by Saadat Hasan Manto and adapted by Mannan Hira. The play portrays the agreement of exchanging the Hindu and Muslim inhabitants of lunatic asylums between the governments of India and Pakistan two or three years after the Partition in 1947.
The play, directed by Aly Zaker, also shows many historical characters like Gandhi, Jinnah and others. They are represented in the play in a contrast to those who are labeled insane by the society. The insanity of the political leaders – who divided not only the map but also the people – is much more pernicious than that of those who are forced to live within the asylum.
Universal Theatre’s play Mahatma, written and directed by Mazharul Haque Pintu, features Mahatma Gandhi’s visit to ease the communal conflict between Hindu and Muslim communities in Noakhali, Bangladesh in 1946. Abul Kalam Azad, Mazharul Hoque Pintu, Mahfuzur Rahman Palash and others performed in the play.
-With New Age input
