NUR JAHAN
After Nil-darpan inaugurated Banga Natya Samhati’s celebrations of the founding of Bengali professional theatre, Dwijendra Lal Roy’s Nur Jāhān (1908) became the second play to be revived for the year-long
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AGUN | SAMPARKA
As a relatively new and small group, Baghajatin Alaap have gone from strength to strength on successive productions. Their latest, Āgun, commemorates the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971—a subject on
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AMI JAGADISH | SHIKHANDI
ECTA (New Jersey)’s winter tour of Bengal this year brought two new plays by Sudipta Bhawmik. Āmi Jagadish has a premise very unusual for Bengali theatre: inspired by J. C.
CHAITANYA BIMANGAL | TIKITO KA SANGRAHA
Two productions from outside Kolkata featured at Nandikar’s 39th Theatre Festival. Nadiya Natya’s Chaitanya Bimangal comes from the pen of senior playwright Chandan Sen, who has composed many biodramas of
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URANTA TARADER CHHAYA | BHABISHYATER SMRITI
Debasish Ray, who prefers to be known only by his first name, no doubt self-effacingly conscious of its commonness in Bengali nomenclature, has become the most prolific Bengali dramatist-director, sought
BARNA-BIPARJAY | MRITYUR MARPYANCH | MACBETH
The five-day annual Intimate Theatre Festival hosted by and at Proscenium’s Art Centre produced some intriguing political commentary. Of the two longer works, about an hour each, Spandan People’s Theatre’s
VODKA & NO TONIC
Like so many troupes, Primetime Theatre Company faced total shutdown of activities during the pandemic years but coped by rehearsing monologues, which allow artists near-social isolation. Director Lillete Dubey found
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DHULOMAKHA RUTI | PRATHAM RAJNAITIK HATYA
Anya Theatre’s twin post-pandemic productions on our freedom fight have firmly established Debasish Ray as Bengali theatre’s newest dramatist-director to watch out for. He has worked with his own group,
NIL-DARPAN
The continuous tradition of Bengali public (not private) and commercial (not amateur) theatre began on 7 December 1872 with the staging of Nil-darpan by the National Theatre. To celebrate its
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KHADDA | MITHYECAR-ER SATYI
Another long-lived troupe celebrates its golden jubilee this year, more praiseworthy because smaller groups do not have the resources that established larger names can command, making it extremely difficult for
TOPI
Anya Theatre has of late invited guest directors for its new productions: Debasish Ray, and now Arindam Mukherjee’s Topi. Mukherjee first wrote Topi in the late 1990s as a one-act,
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AGNISHAJYA
With RRR now the highest form of entertainment, Raja Rammohun Roy’s sestercentennial came and went without the fanfare worthy of such a yugāvatār—not surprising, perhaps, in these historically revisionist times.