What should one take utmost care to avoid when dramatizing a novel? Two Bengali productions provide both chastening and instructive answers. The obvious first criterion: never deviate from the key narrative or characterization, because such licence misguides spectators, who trust what they see and hear as the original author’s intent.
In the case of a classic like Padmā-nadir Mājhi, this carries added responsibility, something that dramatizer-director Parthapratim Deb ignores too many times. He does not show Kuber’s wife Mala as disabled; he downplays her sister Kapila’s coquetry, as well as Kuber’s ill treatment of Mala; he portrays Hosen Miya as villainous rather than ambivalent. His ending conflicts with that of the source, where Kuber left for Maynadwip accompanied by Kapila. He pushes the primordial force of nature and the river into the background. Thus, instead of Manik Bandyopadhyay’s grim realism, we receive a romanticized interpretation.
Many of Deb’s embellishments have no basis in the novel: the zamindar’s demand for identity papers is just a topical inclusion; the insertion of the singing pandit and a chorus of creatures capitalizes on Rup Deb’s vocal power and talent within Baghajatin Alaap. The justifiably large scale and spectacle may awe audiences, but the root story suffers, except that Kajol Sombhu looks and acts the part of Kuber, rightly overshadowing the rest. The complicated sound mixing of live and recorded voices poses great difficulties in balancing. And I must raise a question: why stage the novel anew when Pratikriti’s acclaimed production of it continues to run?
These issues don’t affect Japonchitro’s Shodh, simply because Bengali theatre has steered clear of Taslima Nasrin for reasons best known to themselves. So one applauds dramatizer-director Suhan Basu for his initiative from Delhi. He lets the taut feminist plot of a wife’s vengeance on her chauvinistic husband speak for itself, though he changes the man’s name from Harun to Arun understandably to make the play more applicable to India. However, given the psychological underpinnings of the characters, it seems quite implausible for the protagonist to go so far in her very first meeting with the painter living in the house.
Nevertheless, Anindita Seth excels as her, with high acting skills in evidence, whereas the others vary in degrees of unevenness. To return to the start of this review, Shodh offers another perspective on the dangers of dramatization: why add singing and dancing to a story that does not call for them? The group songs are poor, with the exception of the lead vocalist, Sanandita Chatterjee. Just because musical and choreographic inputs enhance theatre does not mean one should resort to them as padding—a flaw common to many Kolkata groups, too.
(16 April 2026)