Surajit Banerjee’s long-time fascination with Nati Binodini leads to a rerun in Natyaranga’s Sei Ek Binodini!! (sic) Over 15 years ago, he had written Binodini Kathā, featuring a Pirandellian form where a group rehearses a play on the star leading lady of Bengali theatre. This time, too, the metatheatrical situation and subject of ill treatment of actresses remain, except that the playwright imagines Binodini’s reaction to the government’s renaming of Star Theatre as Binodini Theatre but, as in Binodini Kathā, the production is threatened because here the actress is called away for a movie shoot, and other actors don’t show up either. Banerjee thus addresses group theatre’s quandary over cancellations caused by the frequent film commitments of famous performers.
Therefore, I would prefer a question mark in the title replacing the double exclamations. The new elements in the script include the astonishing advent of an older Binodini from the past and some pointed criticism of Girish Ghosh’s callousness. She expresses her feelings of betrayal and an affectionate love for her junior, Tarasundari, a character in the drama. Banerjee, focusing on Binodini’s cloistered life after retirement, mentions her devotion to Gopal and assistance to freedom fighters in 1911, but doesn’t really unearth any particularly novel facts during her last three decades till her death in 1941.
The real discovery is the lively Debopriya Bandopadhyay as Tarasundari (photo), who steals the show and promises major acting achievements in future. Chalantika Gangopadhyay sings immaculately as Kshetramani, and Sayantan Roy Chowdhury behaves suitably bewildered as the director. Banerjee himself, along with Jayanta Das, fit the cameos of pārā goonda-extortionists. By way of improvement, director Anindita Banerjee should perfect the pronunciation of speeches from Shakespeare, especially Hamlet, and make the set theatrically presentable because dangling pictures of actresses down the centuries looks tacky, literally.
(9 April 2026)