Bengali groups have turned to Vijay Tendulkar’s plays again for their thought-provoking content, this time with victimized women at the centre, newly reviving Shantata! Court Chalu Ahe and Mitrachi Goshta, both of which had reached the Bengali stage in previous years.
In Sanglap Kolkata’s Chop! Ādālat Chalchhe, Kuntal Mukhopadhyay “transcreates” the text into a small-town setting in Bengal. He compresses it, retaining the plot, except for a crucial mistake—Tendulkar’s mock court accuses the protagonist of infanticide, whereas Mukhopadhyay changes that to feticide, a different charge altogether (under Section 315, as opposed to Section 302 cited in the original). But by not rewriting the rest of the script accordingly, he allows the references to infanticide later, creating confusion.
Otherwise, he directs a tight production in which everyone acts competently, especially Sarmila Basu in the lead, exuding the warmth and carefree independence of her character before gradually feeling cornered. Mukhopadhyay’s interpolation of a speech for her alluding to Draupadi works well to presage patriarchal conservatism. Sipra Pal contributes distinctively as the shrill-voiced wife of the “judge”. Sourabh’s backdrop of a large, half-obscured clock that darkens to reveal a woman’s half-face leaves a symbolic impact.
Rajib Bardhan of Jadavpur Manthan also adapts on Mitrā, updating the tragedy of the lesbian college girl during World War II to the turbulent late 1960s and early 1970s in Calcutta, but missteps with a hugely anachronistic mention of the Siachen conflict. On the positive side, he juxtaposes ironically the leftist politics of the time with the popularity of Hindi item songs like “Monica” and, particularly, makes the perfect choice of Tagore’s Chitrāngadā for the college play in which Mitra fell for Nama.
Other insertions let the production down, like adding a second narrator and another frame of Derrida and Foucault theoretical commentary, almost as if Bardhan must validate the story academically. The costume design required greater research: as a Presidency College student in the early 1970s, I can vouch for the fact that not all Bengali boys wore dhotis (the jholā, of course, was obligatory). Sumi Har Chowdhury as Mitra, angered by her social “difference”, and Debabrata Das as her innocent, helpful friend stand out, except for the excessively melodramatic army-club scene near the end, which redoubles Tendulkar’s penchant for high emotions.
31 May 2024