A couple of heavyweights in Bengali theatre experimented this year with hour-length one-acts instead of their standard full-fledged repertoire. Both Nandikar and Chetana coincidentally attempted three-handers on relationships featuring two men and one woman. Nandikar goes for a younger team, whereas Chetana chooses celebrity names, producing opposite results.
I really liked Nandikar’s refreshing Jatne Rekho (photo), in which a lovelorn IT professional gets serially enamoured by women, invariably ending in quick disengagement and then self-blame. His bestie helps him set up a new flat because he wants to erase all memories in the last one. A fridge arrives, which plays a role in forging deeper understanding. Writing good-humouredly and un-melodramatically, dramatist-director Arghya Dey Sarkar has the potential of a full-length production here, which he should definitely develop further. I can see it take flight through the excellent abilities of his cast of equals (Saptarshi Maulik, Somesh Saha, Rupsha Bhattacharjee), who display fluent command over mood, repartee and stage movement.
On the other hand, Chetana’s Apriya Satya disappointed. One wonders why Suman Mukhopadhyay directed the same drama by Marathi playwright Rajeev Naik that another Bengali group did a few years ago as Mitrake Niye Ki Karite Haibe? The source, Sāthechā Kāy Karāychā (translated in English as What’s To Be Done With Sathe?), shows a couple conversing mainly around the husband’s inordinate envy of his friend, a famous filmmaker. Unfortunately, the adapter Ujjwal Chattopadhyay adds the friend as a third character, spoiling Naik’s deliberate logic of keeping him invisible. The highly accomplished trio (Debsankar Halder, Senjuti Mukherjee, Sujan Mukhopadhyay) fail to excavate the subtextual vibes that hold the key to Naik’s exploration of ego and psychology.
25 December 2024