Juimalar Soimala, a women-centric play, opened the six-day theatre festival organised by Manikganj-based Niravaran Theatre on Saturday at Studio Theatre Hall of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy.
Taking a thread from Molua Pala, one of the ten palas of Mymensigh Geetika, playwright Anan Zaman’s Juimalar Soimala depicts the similarity of fate that women have been undergoing then and now.In Molua Pala of Mymensingh Geetika, Molua committed suicide by drowning herself with a brass pitcher roped to the neck. Director and playwright Anan Zaman has taken this pitcher as a thread to tell a new story of similar woe of women. In Juimalar Soimala, the play opens with a woman named Juimala who is forced by her husband to sell her beauty and body.
Placed in hostile male-dominated environs, Juimala has nothing to rely on, none to open her heart to, but a pitcher which she found in her uncle’s house. The obsessed, disheveled Juimala talks ceaselessly to her pitcher friend, which the play makes clear is the pitcher Molua drowned with, and eventually decides to end ‘her shame’ by drowning herself.
The play ends with the pitcher being found by another woman as if to suggest the stream of woes, for women, seems ever running.
Artistes of Niravaran Theatre, though not as professional and well-up as audience usually see on Dhaka stages, did not fail to carry the message across. Kobita Sarkar, who enacted Juimala, deserves praise for her energetic, spontaneous and impressive performance.
Earlier, the six-day festival was inaugurated by thespian Mamunur Rashid, while popular folk singer Mamtaz Begum, who is also a lawmaker from Manikganj, was present as the chief guest.
‘We know that a troupe like Niravaran has many limitations as there is, I know, no theatre hall or auditorium, no financial support in Manikganj. But there commitment and passion has overcome the barriers. I thank them and hope they will continue despite obstacles’, said Mamunru Rashid.
Singer-lawmaker Mamtaz Begum assured the troupe that she would do her level best to build a theatre hall in Manikganj.
The festival, in two shifts (October 11-13 at Studio Theatre Hall and October 18-20 at Experimental Theatre Hall), will see five plays by three troupes. Among the plays four are written by Anan Zaman and the other is directed by him.
Niravaran Theatre organised the festival to celebrate the troupe’s 7th founding anniversary and also the troupe’s founder Anan Zaman’s birthday.
-With New Age input
