The story: Pratham Partha is about Karna and how he resists every lure and temptation to join the Pandavas in the great battle of Kurukshetra. “I choose to live and die as a friend of the Kauravas and nothing can make me betray my friendship,” is his final word in the face of cunning and conspiracy.

Theatre comes in all costumes and grandeur. There’s a stage and there are actors moving around with capes and stories. But when Calcutta Club hosted Buddhadeva Bose’s Pratham Partha, an audio play, little did the audience know that they were in for a spectacle. 

Gone were the majestic sets and the attire. Instead, a makeshift stage and a blank screen facing a projector had Debshankar Halder, Biswajit Chakraborty, Raya Bhattacharya, Anjana Basu and their powerful voices to compensate for the lack of props.

Pratham Partha is a play written in blank verse and dealing with the fate of Karna from the Mahabharata. Despite the subject being lofty and the language leaning to the archaic, the actors kept their audience glued to their seats in anticipation. Debshankar transported his stage prowess onto the micro stage of the Centenary Hall, Calcutta Club. And nothing held him back from showcasing Karna in all his pathos. Raya as Kunti and Biswajit as Krishna were at their best with their renditions of the characters. Anjana, radiant in blue and donning the role of the enigmatic Draupadi, had many going wow with her performance.

But for Debshankar, who loves to challenge himself, performing an audio play seemed more difficult. “In theatre, your vocal acting is accompanied by your movement on stage. But to play Karna, who is constantly suffering from an identity crisis, merely through speech wasn’t easy. The audience was splendid,” the actor said.

Mahabharata and its crises of epic proportions complete with the desperation of Kunti, the seduction by Draupadi, the cunning of Krishna and the despondency of Karna culminated in a theatrical climax that Calcutta Club shall remember for days to come.

Trina Chaudhuri

Hosting Pratham Partha was a great initiative by the club. Despite being an audio play, it kept all of us glued. I especially loved the bit between Karna and Krishna. I would love to see such plays in future as well. 

— Ishita Dutta, member

It was a unique performance by veteran Biswajit, the ever young Debshankar, a melodramatic Anjana and a charismatic Raya. I look forward to such productions in the club. It was an evening well spent.

— Subir Kumar Dutta, member

I loved the play, especially the part between Karna and Krishna. I think all four of them were brilliant and none overshadowed the other. Kunti’s pain and Draupadi’s pride were expressed beautifully.

— Shinjini Bose, member