Bengali groups continue to question the rosy picture of India that some parties propagate. Two new productions zero in on Jungle Mahal and, specifically, the paucity of opportunities and medical care there, simultaneously commenting on political matters as they do so.
Nandikar’s Mānush takes the very short story by Prafulla Roy, expanded by Anindita Chakraborty and Saptarshi Maulik into a full-length play that innovatively employs as its primary language the Hindi spoken in that region. Roy describes a lowly tracker for shikaris who helps a pregnant woman going to the nearest city miles away across treacherous terrain. Director Sohini Sengupta distributes stage time to the full complement of Nandikar’s actors with her customary energy and the dramatizers themselves perform the lead roles with breathtaking physicalization, culminating in hope for human values.
But as the source itself covers only a few pages, the duration in the theatre seems too protracted – editing half an hour would actually intensify the intended impact. (Let’s not forget that Tapan Sinha’s classic cinematization, Admi aur Aurat, lasted less than an hour.) One can easily spot the errant episodes: the opening, where Maulik fights hungry carnivores, can be cut out of sympathy for our disappearing wildlife, rather than glorify injury to animals; and the pair’s weary journey winding through all parts of the auditorium and a forest setting too reminiscent of Nandikar’s own Mādhabi, can be much reduced.
Natyajan’s punningly-titled Left Right Left is not funny at all. An original script by Mainak Sengupta, it features a dedicated rural doctor who tends to everyone needing treatment, including a wounded extremist. For this act, he faces a series of unwarranted situations that raise doubts about the fairness of our governments and legal systems. Sandip Bhattacharya directs the incidents as they unfold with verisimilitude, which makes us feel that they can happen to any of us who carry out our professions with a sense of serving society. We begin to think, indeed, who is terrorizing whom? He designs a simple bamboo set for the chamber that doubles up later for ominous spaces. Suman Paul enacts the victimized doctor without melodramatizing, sticking calmly and rationally to his position, come what may. All the other characters are eminently recognizable in our world.
(From The Times of India, 20 September 2019)