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A scene from Sayak’s play Dhrubatara. Picture by Gopal Senapati
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It’s that time of the year again when theatre-lovers in Howrah get to see some good plays by groups from different parts of the state in their home town. One such festival is Dwandwik Natyotsav, which is a mixture of both short and full-length plays. The group’s 15th theatre festival is being held from January 5 to 14 at Sarat Sadan. The festival was inaugurated on January 5 by Jagamohan Majumdar, theatre director. Other guests included theatre personalities Murari Roychowdhury and Manish Mitra.
Although the festival was held at both Rabindra Sadan and Sarat Sadan earlier, for the past two years, Dwandwik has been organising its annual festival at Sarat Sadan alone. “There have been requests from the audience in Howrah that they are being deprived of good plays. Many cannot travel to Calcutta. So we shifted the festival to Howrah completely,” said Aloy Chowdhury, a member of Dwandwik.
To celebrate the completion of 15 years of the theatre festival, Dwandwik has organised a bigger festival this year. While all these years, the group has concentrated on full-length plays, this year, smaller groups from the districts are also getting a chance to stage short plays. “We have organised short and long play festival for our silver jubilee year. This year, we have plays by lesser known groups too,” said Chowdhury.
Groups from Birbhum, Hooghly and North and South 24 Parganas are staging short plays at Sarat Sadan Hall II. The plays start every evening from 6pm. “One short play and one full-length play are being staged on most of the days,” said Chowdhury. The Achintya Chowdhury Smarak lecture was delivered by director Sekhar Sammadar on January 8.
Most of the groups are staging new productions. “Almost all of the plays are just about three to four shows old. Most in Howrah have not seen these productions,” said Chowdhury. Dwandwik is reviving one of its old productions, Bhalo Chele staged on January 12. “This play was staged some eight years back, we are reviving it with minor changes,” said Chowdhury. An attraction for Howrah theatre-goers is Rajdarshan, the most talked-about production by lifers of Presidency Correctional Home. It was staged on January 10. Charbak will stage Arindam Ganguly’s comedy, Dudh Kheyecho Meow, with Sabyasachi Chakraborty and Kheyali Dastidar on January 13. On the last day is Drishyapot’s Audhipoush with Debshankar Halder.
The sixth Dwandwik Samman will be awarded to theatre personality, Sushanta Bandopadhyay on the last day of the festival. The Achintya Chowdhury Smarak Samman was given to theatre personality Baidyanath Mukhopadhyay.
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