Past Event : নাট্যসন্ধ্যা - A reflection

BASC organized Natyosandhya (an evening of Drama) on June 26, 2011 at Duarte Performing Arts Center at Duarte, CA. Judging by ecstatic comments of viewers, the event was a great success. About 270 people gathered to enjoy three full length plays and one short “Shruti Natok”. Drama festival was first organized in 2007 by Ajit Bose-Roy, Sagar Rakshit and Dr. Madan Mukhopadhyay. BASC started hosting drama festivals starting last year. We hope to make this an annual event. Highlight of the evening was an incredible performance in “Borda Borda” by the famous actor and playwright Goutam Halder from Kolkata.

Starting at 2:00 PM sharp Biplab Bhawal interviewed Goutam Halder for half hour on various topics including Goutam’s own experience and views about stage plays.

First play was Chhayanot (movie actor), written and originally staged by legendary actor Utpal Dutta . Actors from Los Angeles area participated in this play directed by Kalachand Seal. The play was a comedy about film industry and the inevitable rise-and-fall of fortunes of the people involved. While at 1h 50m the play might have seemed long, the audience were engrossed in the lives of rising star Manoj Kumar (Rahul Ganguly), beautiful but cruel heroine Sucharita (Maitreyee Chakraborty), confused director Ajit (Somangshu Bhattacharya), rich-but-culturally-illiterate producer Binayendra Chowdhury (Dr. Madan Mukhopadhyay), ultra-efficient assistant director Basak (Saikat Chakraborty), and Manoj’s wife, ex-actress and mother of an illegitimate child Parijat (Soma Sarkar). The main cast was ably supported by Samir Chatterjee and Jyotishko Ganguly playing scriptwriters Arindam and Pulak; Kallol Chattopadhyay playing powerful film critic Sumatha Nandi; Dhruba Bose-Roy and Partha Pramanik playing shrewd fringe actors Nabanita and Manish; Sudeshna Seal and Mandavi Chattopadhyay playing funny lyricist and composer Champa and Chameli; Mrinmoy Saha playing cameraman Arup; and Kalachand Seal playing do-it-all Bhabatosh. Congratulations to the team for a fine performance.

Chhayanot was followed by Haripada Haribol – a hilarious satire staged by Cactus Connection from Phoenix. Written by Indrasish Lahiri based on Chekov’s short story and directed by Rupanjana Sengupta, it is about an ultra-emotional clerk Haripada who accidentally sneezes on the powerful managing director. At first Haripada is scared of losing his job and begs for MD’s forgiveness. Then he becomes upset that the MD does not give any importance to the matter. Finally he becomes combative, gets fired and then commits suicide. It was interspersed with funny songs and dances. Well done, Cactus Connection!

After break for “High Tea” (Dalpuri, Alur Dom, Fish Chop and Chhanaar Payes) Biplab Bhawal and Rumi Bagchi Bhawal presented Jalsa, a 10 minute shruti natok written by Rumi. Two ex-lovers Rudra and Sanjana meet at Banga Sammelan. Sanjana leads Rudra along and re-ignites long-lost passion in him, only to reveal that she is happily married and was just playing with Rudra’s emotions because she was bored. Rumi did a great job as a writer in showing many different emotions within this short span. Viewers enjoyed this little drama very much.

The marquee event was “Barda Barda” by Goutam Halder based on Munshi Premchand’s “Bare Bhai Sahab”. In the 50 minute play Goutam sat on a chair reminiscing about his older brother while being videotaped and projected on a large screen behind him so viewers could see two sides of his face at the same time. The simple story about the emotional connections between two brothers in school illustrated the powerful deep truths about relationship that “Sahitya Samrat” like Munshi Premchand wrote so eloquently about.

Goutam played both brothers with such high emotional intensity that little changes in stance and voice would differentiate the roles switching in an instant. Just sitting on the chair he transported us to the hostel, the playing field, the cafeteria, and in the end we were running with a group of kids chasing after a loose kite. Words cannot do justice to Goutam’s acting abilities.

BASC thanks the large crew who worked relentlessly behind the scene. Raja Chakraborty, with able assist from EC member Rahul Ganguly, was the Project Manager. Other volunteers included Pratik Deb: Light; Sumanta Chakraborty: Sound, Mitali Gupta: Stage management, Soma Prasad/Shukla Sarkar: hospitality and fund raising, Tarun Maitra: Food, Siddharth Dasgupta: Facility. Each lead was supported by a large group of volunteers.

BASC is proud to have staged such a great show. We invite you to join hands with us in coming days.