Icons’ controversies make way to stage

Priyanka Dasgupta
KOLKATA: What’s common between Debabrata Biswas, Sombhu Mitra, Ajitesh Bandopadhyay, Suchitra Mitra, Aurobindo Ghosh, Utpal Dutt, Keya Chakraborty and Henry Derozio? In recent past, the Bengali stage has placed all these legends under the microscope! Some call it coincidence; others name it as the new trend for survival of Bengali theatre reeling under a crisis of original plays and overkill of adaptations of Shakespearean and Roman plays.
The process is simple. Pick up controversies from lives of icons. Create an imaginary space where the icons are questioned about them. Some dialogues retain authenticity by using references to interviews or essays penned by the legends. Others are works of fertile imagination. The result is an attention-grabbing controversial mix of fact, fiction, sensationalism and controversy.
Take the case of Natyaranga’s forthcoming play on Utpal Dutt and Ajitesh Bandopadhyay titled ‘Sherafghaner Tiner Tolowar’. In one scene of the play, Bandopadhyay asks Dutt if at the Kolkata Film Festival party on January 10, 1990, the latter had lost control in front of the then chief minister Jyoti Basu because of excessive drinking and had to be admitted to the Woodlands Nursing Home? Dutt’s dialogues go like: “Was that the rumour? Actually, slander has never left me. I wasn’t averse to social drinking. But I wouldn’t appreciate if someone doesn’t know how to hold his drink. On January 5, 1990, I was unwell. That aggravated after I performed on January 7. I couldn’t attend the opening ceremony of the film festival on January 10. After repeated requests, I went to the party in the evening. I felt suffocated and fell down. My body had started taking revenge on me. During my youth, I used to have a medicine so that I could stay up at night to write plays after a hard day’s work…”
In case of the play on Sombhu Mitra, questions are raised on why he didn’t support Dutt when the latter was jailed for his play. ‘Boma’ — the fictional play with real names — raises questions on whether Aurobindo Ghosh was an escapist or not. ‘Jhorer Pakhi’ — the play on Derozio — has the radical thinker seeming disillusioned with the way the Young Bengal movement was heading.
Playwright-actor-director Bratya Basu says this trend caught on after the success of his ‘Ruddhasangeet’. Says Basu, “People followed me after they realized that this method of writing can shock/surprise the audience.”
Playwright-actor Surajit Bandopadhyay, who has played Derozio, Dutt and Mitra, admits that this trend exits because the dramatic moments in the legends’ lives lend themselves easily to be used in the plays. “There is a political vacuum now. The times are confusing and it’s difficult to find real characters from the contemporary world who can match up to these icons. Contradictions existed in the lives of icons too. But they were so larger than life that plays can be written on them.”
Criticism about historical authenticity of such works hasn’t gone unnoticed. Some have raised objections to Basu’s ‘Ruddhasangeet’ where he had Debabrata Biswas’ character saying it’s better to be a ‘kamaobadi’ than a ‘maobadi’. To this, Basu says, “Look at a play like ‘Galileo’. In real life did he actually say everything that he said in the play? Critics aren’t aware of the work happening outside India. Look at how Quentin Tarantino presented an alternative history of Hitler in the ‘Inglourious Basterds’. Ultimately projects with icons work only if they are aesthetic.”
If appreciation has come for highlighting the grey areas in lives of legends, rejection has followed too. Founder member of People’s Little Theatre, Asit Basu, dismisses these as “half-baked attempts at playing to the galleries”. Says Basu, “It’s reflective of a culture of lies. Analysing icons from the recent past require good research. I needed two-and-a-half years of research to do a documentary on Tapas Sen (who I knew for 35 years). Today, anyone can pick up one icon and write a play that’s far removed from truth. Time will say the harm they are doing to history.”