Bengali groups have not just rediscovered their 19th-century commercial predecessors (whom many of them used to disdain 50 years ago), but dramatist-directors like Surajit Banerjee and Rakesh Ghosh have revisited this history twice themselves. Their latest plays stand apart by shedding light on neglected actors—Tara Sundari, albeit peripherally, and Bel Babu respectively—and hopefully inspiring others to write about scores of similarly forsaken but prodigious talents from that period.
Banerjee’s long-time fascination with Nati Binodini leads to a rerun in Natyaranga’s Sei Ek Binodini!! (sic) Over 15 years ago, he had written Binodini Kathā, featuring a Pirandellian form where a group rehearses a play on the star leading lady of Bengali theatre. This time, too, the metatheatrical situation and subject of ill treatment of actresses remain, except that the playwright imagines Binodini’s reaction to the government’s renaming of Star Theatre as Binodini Theatre but, as in Binodini Kathā, the production is threatened because here the actress is called away for a movie shoot, and other actors don’t show up either. Banerjee thus addresses group theatre’s quandary over cancellations caused by the frequent film commitments of famous performers.
Therefore, I would prefer a question mark in the title replacing the double exclamations. The new elements in the script include the astonishing advent of an older Binodini from the past and some pointed criticism of Girish Ghosh’s callousness. She expresses her feelings of betrayal and an affectionate love for her junior, Tara Sundari, a character in the drama. Banerjee, focusing on Binodini’s cloistered life after retirement, mentions her devotion to Gopal and assistance to freedom fighters in 1911, but doesn’t really unearth any particularly novel facts during her last three decades till her death in 1941.
The real discovery is the lively Debopriya Bandopadhyay as Tara Sundari (photo), who steals the show and promises major acting achievements in future. Chalantika Gangopadhyay sings immaculately as Kshetramani, and Sayantan Roy Chowdhury behaves suitably bewildered as the director. Banerjee himself, along with Jayanta Das, fit the cameos of pārā goonda-extortionists. By way of improvement, director Anindita Banerjee should perfect the pronunciation of speeches from Shakespeare, especially Hamlet, and make the set theatrically presentable because dangling pictures of actresses down the centuries looks tacky, literally. After Rakesh Ghosh’s Radha-Ramakrishna, this is the only current Binodini play worth watching.
(9 April 2026)
Amrita Lal Mookerjee (I adopt the spelling approved by his obituary in the weekly Reis and Rayyet on 22 March 1890) was one of the illustrious theatre trio of Amrita Lals (Basu, Mitra and Mookerjee). Christened Bel Babu or Captain Bell on stage, he charmed audiences initially with his female impersonation and then, after actresses entered theatre, as a comedian, dancer and pantomime or “harlequin” (the uncommon word used by Reis and Rayyet for him). Although he hailed from the affluent family of Diwan Durga Charan Mookerjee, we know very little about his personal life before his shocking death at the age of 36.
These circumstances made Rakesh Ghosh compose Bel-babu, a fictive account set on the eve of the memorial meeting at Star Theatre to honour him. A tippling Girish Ghosh (in another unflattering portrayal) reluctantly talks to a strangely clairvoyant man who forewarns him that the police have a warrant naming him and others for abetting Bel’s death. Soon, Ardhendu Sekhar Mustafi and Amritalal Basu arrive, to face the same accusation. Rakesh speculates that the effeminate Bel killed himself because of their disrespect for his art of female impersonation.
This single theme, however, obscures Bel’s virtuosity, which Rakesh can still fit in by adding half an hour to do justice to his career. Bel began as a mere 14-year-old at the Bagbazar Amateur Theatre, creating Kumudini in Sadhabār Ekādashi (1868) and Sarada Sundari in Lilābati (1871). When professional theatre started with Nil-darpan in 1872, he played the assaulted victim Kshetramani. He moved to male characters in the mid-1870s and distinguished himself in a great variety of them for almost 15 years, much longer than his six years in female roles: Rahim Shekh in Durgesh-nandini (1878), Selim in the historical Ānanda Raho and Indra in the mythological Rāban-badh (both 1881), Chaitanya in Rup-sanātan (1887, an intriguing choice since Binodini had acted Chaitanya in 1884), Gadadhar in the domestic Saralā (1888) and Bhajahari in the social Praphulla (1889), winning considerable praise. So why did he commit suicide?
My purpose in highlighting this stellar sample of Bel’s CV is to persuade Rakesh that he must reveal Bel’s range—all the more so because his lead, Ranjan Bose, who shines in a double role here (photo) as well as sings, has matured sufficiently to represent that diversity and should get the opportunity to do so. Krishna Roy complements him as Bel’s confidante, the actress Kshetramani, depicted naturally.
(27 August 2026)