After entertaining on Bengali big screens, ghostly comedies have come to haunt Bengali theatre, many halls of which already provide homes to resident spooks. While most productions of the current genre look back over their shoulders in nostalgia to the 19th-century stage, Nat-Ranga startles us with one in present times. Jokes apart, we theatre people as well as Kolkata’s heritage activists should thank dramatist-director Sohan Bandopadhyay for swinging the spotlight on old or abandoned playhouses and the fate they met, whether through arson or apathy, like Star and Rang Mahal in the past or the once-pioneer Circarina now. Any advanced culture renovates and takes pride in them, but we demolish and “promote”. So, Chhāyāpather Sheshe is actually a realistic story of what befalls one of them.
As the politician-promoter sharks eye this property for a mall, a supernatural company inside decides not to surrender. Bandopadhyay’s clearly deeply-felt plot and characters make this his finest original play that I have seen, not just because of his serious intent, but also his comedic standards, far superior to some of his recent, more farcical excursions. The first half attains such high points that a momentary letdown occurs immediately after the interval, but he ensures a rousing finale. If only our state would heed his unstated call and divert towards restoration or remodelling the funds earmarked as Puja windfalls for clubs.
Goutam Halder travesties perfectly the MLA villain of the piece without going overboard, so that his sinister edge unnerves us. Ankita Majhi presents a contrast (picture) as his moll full of affectations, and Sanjib Sarkar delights as a grizzled Hindustani caretaker worthy of Macbeth’s Porter. The company members combine to create relief through their theatricality. Saumik-Piyali’s set simultaneously evokes the musty ambience of ancient painted scenery against a crumbling contemporary concrete jungle behind.
Meanwhile, dramatist-director Ishita Mukhopadhyay places Ushneek’s Bhut (featured at Sayak’s golden anniversary festival) in the north Bengal hills. A chartered accountant arrives for some rest and relaxation at a bungalow run by a local. Soon enough, he begins to hear voices and also sees an all-white apparition behaving quite at home. The play turns from light-hearted fun into a mutual confessional over spirits (which the spirit readily gulps down) allowing dark secrets to come tumbling out of the successive tumblers. I cannot disclose more for obvious reasons, except that Ishita uses it to universalize the deprivation and violence in humanity, and concludes in unnecessary moralizing.
Only three characters appear, of whom neither Deb Sankar Halder in the lead nor Subhasish Mukherjee as the ghost has much to overcome by way of challenges to their acting skills, because Ishita has not developed their roles over and beyond the ordinary. Consequently, Mouma Naskar as the Nepali caretaker ends up stealing the show, her accent and mannerisms authentic to a T.
31 March 2024