Jatra artistes presented Munier Chowdhury’s famous historical play Raktakto Prantor in a typical traditional jatra style on Friday at the Experimental Theatre Hall of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy.
It is a challenging experimentation by the Shilpakala Repertory to present Chowdhury’s several times staged play, based on the third battle of Panipat between the Marathas and the Pathans in 1761, to be performed by the jatra artistes, who are habituated to perform on such themes.
Though the artistes performed in typical high pitched rhythmic voice modulation as they do in jatras, the presentation appeared a bit like urban theatre.
Director Sultan Selim, a popular jatra actor-director, modified the original text by incorporating some dialogues and songs frequently used in traditional historical jatras.
It gave a new dimension to Chowdhury’s imaginary play, which does not feature the war rather focuses on a conflictive couple Ibrahim Kardi, loyal to Marathas and Johra Begum, loyal to Pathans, who were bound by marriage.
Zafrul Swapon in the role of a complex character of Ibrahim Kardi, duty-bound Muslim general of the Hindu Maratha army, performed well. The audience also enjoyed Sharmimala’s performance as Johra Begum also known as Munnu Beg, who has some twists in her character: being the wife of the Marath general she is loyal to the mUslim Pathans.
Noted jatra artiste Milon Kanti Dey, in the role of Ahmad Shah Abdali, was also entertaining.
But, Munier Chowdhury’s anti war stance in Raktakto Prantor is lost in the jatra.
Director Sultan Selim, however, claimed his effort was to give a jatra ambiance without distorting the message of the historical play. ‘It was a big challenge for me to adapt such a famous play for a jatra production,’ he said.
‘It was a good production. I enjoyed all the moments of it’, said Badrul Hasan, an audience.
‘I thank BSA for their effort to revive jatra . The production was enjoyable’, said theatre activist Momena Chowdhury.
Earlier, the troupe staged the same production at the same venue on Thursday.
-With New Age input
