Ganga-Jamuna theatre festival, which is considered by many as one of the most awaited theatre festivals for the last three years in the capital, kicked off on Monday amid pomp and colour. The opening day drew a large number of theatre activists and even greater number of audience at Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy. It is to be noted that Ganga-Jamuna is a well known theatre festival in Kolkata, which is organised there by Kolkata-based theatre troupe Anik; but for the past three years this festival is also being arranged in Bangladesh. It is, however, the ‘festival organising committee’ that arranges the festival here.
With the goal to consolidating cultural affinity and amity between the theatre activists of Bangladesh and India, the festival will see 14 theatre shows by local and Indian troupes. Besides, on the open stage, local cultural troupes will stage street theatre shows and present music also.
On Monday, Asaduzzaman Noor, cultural affairs minister, inaugurated the festival, while, Ramendu Majumder, worldwide president of International Theatre Institute; thespian Mamunur Rashid, thespian Nasiruddin Yousuff, who is also president of Sammilito Sangskritik Jote, Liaquat Ali Lucky, director general of BSA, and Kolkata-based thespian Dolly Bose were present as special guests.
After the inauguration, local troupe Nagarik Natya Sampraday and students of Theatre and Performance Studies Department of Dhaka University respectively staged Naamgotrohin and Hamlet at National and Experimental Theatre Halls of Shilpakala. Both the shows had full house audience.
Nagarik’s Naamgotrohin is the troupe’s recent production. The play is a compilation of three short plays based on three short stories by the late Urdu writer Sadat Hasan Manto.
Directed by Kolkata-based thespian Usha Ganguly, all the three plays deal with the life of women who end up being prostitutes due to unavoidable circumstances. The plays sharply reveal the reality underneath the surface and delve deep into the reasons which pushed the women into prostitution.
The plays — Kali Salwar, License and Hatak — were sewn together by narrator-connectors whose commentaries and narrations shed light on the facts and realities of these women’s lives.
The play had a star-studded cast of Api Karim, Shriya Sarbajaya and Sara Zaker, who enacted the lead roles of the three interconnected short plays.
At Experimental Theatre Hall, however, the audience was led into the split, schizophrenic mind of Hamlet.
Students of Theatre and Performance Studies Department of Dhaka University staged Shakespeare’s classic tragedy Hamlet in late iconic poet Shamsur Rahman’s arresting translation.
Seven Master’s degree students of the department acted in the play in character-shift style, where each of the four male actors acted as Hamlet, Claudius, Horatio and others, in turns.
There were several brilliant moments when the audience was gripped and swayed, as the energetic performers successfully transmitted the spell of the enigmatic Prince of Denmark. The schizophrenic Hamlet, his mental agony, aversion to his mother, desire for revenge, repugnance towards women, especially Ophelia whom he loved, were all wonderfully rendered by the actors.
Audience left the hall spell-bound, if not troubled by the ‘Hamletian’ schism.
Today, Kolkata-based troupe Chupkotha will stage Atmiya Swajan at National Theatre Hall, while local jatra troupe Joyjatra will stage Tipu Sultan at the Experimental Theatre Hall of BSA. Both the plays will commence at 7:00pm.
-With New Age input
