Calcutta theatre’s search for other-than-proscenium performance spaces throws up surprising finds at times. While all theatre aficionados are thoroughly familiar with the Academy of Fine Arts as a time-hallowed venue for standard, proscenium plays, not many will know of a space on the third floor of the building (above the art galleries) that is usable as a reasonably acceptable performance site. 10th Planet chose this space (basically a large, almost square, room with whitewashed walls) for a show of its new production, Epitaphheen Mrityu, and within the opening few minutes of the play, the biggest issue with the location made its presence felt. Actually heard. Lack of soundproofing allowed the blare of live music playing in the adjoining Rabindra Sadan grounds to invade the room, threatening to drown the dialogues. Though not much meaning should be read into the coincidental nature of things, it was quite unsettling that a play critiquing State-sponsored fascism should almost be submerged under the cacophony of government-funded festivities. The actors genuinely deserve praise for robustly battling the unrelenting sonic aggression without losing focus.
Epitaphheen Mrityu is a fairly loyal translation of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Men Without Shadows. Since Sharanya Deyy, the playwright and director, presumably aimed to have the play latch onto the local, present-day political milieu, a better strategy would have been adaptation, given the fact that Sartre’s France-focused text is predicated upon the experiences of the Second World War. There is no denying that smartly done localisations have greater traction with the audience as compared to translations, which tend to remain distant and difficult to connect to. Still, the play resonates with the audience, primarily due to the polished, motivated performances rendered by the actors. While Samudra Singha, Samudranil Sarkar, Sharanya Deyy, and Arthes Das are all quite effective, Namrota Roy is indeed a revelation with her mature interpretation of Lucie. Deyy’s ploy of segregating the performance space into two zones and having the audience move around works well, deliberately creating a sense of dislocation and disorientation.