Bijon Bhattacharya has inspired a number of theatre personalities but in Howrah most have not had the temerity to work on his plays or do any research on his works. On the birth centenary of this revolutionary playwright-director-actor, Natadha decided to pay tribute to Bijon Bhattacharya through some of his well-known plays and through discussions by theatre personalities. The three-day programme started from July 17, Bijon’s birth anniversary and continued till July 19 at Ramgopal Mancha.

“It is indeed a great effort by Natadha to organise a workshop on Bijon Bhattacharya when no other theatre group has yet done that. However, Bijon Bhattacharya was a playwright with a different vision who few people understand,” said Ashok Mukhopadhyay, the director of Theatre Workshop, who was present to speak about Bhattacharya on the last day of the festival. He also read a poem and an excerpt from one of Bhattacharya’s plays.
Other speakers of the evening included directors Chandan Sen, Debasish Majumdar, Soumitra Basu and Goutam Mukhopadhyay. “Few directors understood the villages of Bengal the way Bijon Bhattacharya did. Also, he had seen and felt revolutions, riots and destruction closely. Which is why there were magnified expressions of emotions in most of his scripts,” said Basu.

Portions of Bhattacharya’s plays like Nabanna, Aborodh, Hans Khali Hans and Nagchampa were enacted during the three days of the festival by members of Natadha.

“On the first day, we had staged a portion of Nabanna and Aborodh, which we had to re-stage on the last day on audience request. Because of inclement weather on July 17, many people could not come to watch the plays,” said Shib Mukhopadhyay, the director of Natadha.

“While the members of Natadha acted in all the plays, we had included actors from other groups as well in Nabanna. Subir Goswami from Bally Bidushak, Badal De from Samipesu and Chandrasekhar Ghosh from Trisha had acted in the play,” said Mukhopadhyay.

School students were also involved in the festival. Students of different schools of Howrah had prepared short speeches on Bijon Bhattacharya, based on whatever information was provided to them. Students of Howrah Vivekananda Institution had even prepared a skit on the playwright.

Speakers like Shyamal Chakraborty, Kamal Saha, Kaushik Chattopadhyay, Bibhash Chakraborty and Meghnad Bhattacharya were invited to speak on Bijon Bhattacharya as well. An exhibition on Bijon’s life and works was on display at the entrance to Ramgopal Mancha.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Calcutta,India / Front Page> Howrah> Story / by Dalia Mukherjee / Friday – July 24th, 2015