The two-day theatre festival organised by Sanglap Group Theatre ended on Thursday through staging of Badnam at the National Theatre Hall.
The play, adapted and directed by Mustafa Hira from Tagore’s short story having the same title, features how an ordinary housewife of a police officer emerges as a great patriot and scarifies all the happiness in the family life when the nation is in crisis.A considerable number of audiences watched the play.
Earlier, the festival was inaugurated by Dhaka University vice chancellor professor AAMS Arefin Siddique on Wednesday at the same venue.
On the opening day, guest troupe Dristipat Natyadal staged Raja Himadri, adapted and directed by Khandaker Tazmi Noor from Sophocles’ classic Oedipus.
Doing adaptation, Tazmi has converted the names of the characters, place and the plot of the Greek tragedy to give it a sub-continental touch suitable for the contemporary local audience. The storyline, however, remains the same.
A huge set made of thin fabrics on the back stage creates an impression of the cloudy ambience of an imaginary Himalayan terrain Pragjotishpur where Himadri has been declared the king in gratitude for freeing the innocent people from the atrocity of the demon Sangramvi.
The queen of the state Indrani, the widow of the former king Chandrashekher, marries the new king.
An innovative presentation of the demon with a huge puppet having radiant eyes was enjoyable. The performance, however, got momentum as a blind seer appears onstage and after a hitting encounter with the king, accused the latter for causing disaster.
Such allegation led Raja Himadri to search for the deadly truth of his origin: Himadri killed his father, married his mother and had children by his mother.
The play entertained a good number of audiences. ‘It was a good adaptation of the Greek tragedy into our Himalayan myth. I have enjoyed the play’, said, Tapash Karmakar, a student of Shiddheshwari University College.
Another audience, Masud Alam, praised the stage design and background music.
Sanglap Group Theatre organised the festival in memory of its late vice-president Jasim Uddin Nasir who had died in a road accident in 2010.
The troupe also introduced Jasim Uddin Nasir Smriti Padak in the festival. And the first award was bestowed on the chairman of Bangladesh Group Theatre Federation Liaquat Ali Lucky, who is also director general of BSA.
-With New Age input
