Suman Sengupta’s work as dramatist-director attains a peak on Chetla Krishti Sansad’s Āmār Gān, hopefully one of many other peaks in future. It deservedly won Theatre Workshop’s annual Satyen Mitra award for playwriting this year. A visually-impaired and wheelchair-bound teenage boy, Palash, disappears mysteriously from his home, and we get to know his background through the flashbacks that ensue. Highly intelligent, he constantly sought answers from his physicist father, asking most obsessively of all about the definition of light.
This situation does raise several implausibilities. First, any human can feel the warmth of sunlight on the skin, which should have helped Palash in understanding the nature of light. Second, is his father so bad a physics teacher that he cannot explain light adequately and must resort to hurtful methods? Third, can’t he get hold of toys or models of birds and trees for Palash’s comprehension? Fourth, why has this educated family not located a suitable school for him? Fifth, why must he have to crawl up the stairs every time to his favourite spot, the terrace? The otherwise sublime conclusion also seems anticlimactic, because the family fails to search for him in the one place that they know very well he loves to go to.
In spite of all these misgivings, Āmār Gān leaves a strong impact due to more important aspects. Sengupta’s direction and the family’s acting (Sayantan Maitra as Palash, with Mayukh Dutta and Monjima Chattopadhyay in the photo) are flawless. He peoples the drama with a true-to-life variety of secondary characters, like a somewhat crazy pupil (Arka Chakraborty) of the father’s, and an insensitive journalist (Prashanta Dutta) typical of callous humans (though a too-obvious personification of the dark side who appears periodically is dispensable). His usage of Rabindrasangit truly moves as well as enlightens (“Āmār ange ange ke bājāy bānshi” one of many examples). And the black, white and grey design and costumes are most appropriate.
29 July 2024