With an obvious debt to Priestley’s Inspector Calls and a nod to Bratya Basu’s Chatushkon, Simantika’s Nil Darja is a derivative but potentially intriguing thriller about guilt and auto-suggestion. A husband phones his wife on her birthday evening to excuse himself owing to urgent work. Actually he sends a hired assassin to kill her. Meanwhile, disgusted by his callousness, she calls her lover to come over. In this situation fraught with possibilities, author Premendra Majumdar follows the Priestley line. Manabendra Majumdar directs, designs a box set in triangular patterns, and plays the murderer as a curious eccentric, but the production fails because Ivy Banerji is singularly unsuited to a heroine’s part.
Ananda Lal
Slowly but steadily the courtyard in Swabhumi is endearing itself to budding talents. Inadequate publicity may cause some embarrassment for them but it was a pleasant evening under the open sky on August 26 listening to Tagore songs laced with dance in a show coordinated by Maya Chakraborty. Sincere performance came from the rank newcomers getting into the groove as they went along. Sudip Basu made an impression with his tenor receptive to Tagorean insight. Chakraborty sounded a bit overstressed. Choreographer Srabani Dey was full of ideas although the costumes were far from satisfactory.
Anshuman Bhowmick
The Calcutta School of Music presented the last of the Monsoon Concerts on August 28. Young pianist Avijit Kundu played the Nocturne in E flat opus 9 and the Raindrop Prelude by Chopin, all executed with meticulous attention to details of dynamics and tempo, the unrelenting strictness of which resulted in a rather robotic performance. Thiri Pasow featured next, accompanied by Madhumati Sen. Thiri’s pleasant baritone voice faltered through a few old songs but then sprang Rossini’s Figaro on a bemused audience with a computerised karaoke accompaniment which distracted him and soon came to grief. Madhumati valiantly coped with erratic phrasing and creative intonation with good humour. Da-na Roy joined Thiri to conclude the progra-mme with two music-hall numbers in her clear soprano voice. The last item was by Prasanto and Malabika Dutt, who played well-chosen concert favourites like Wienia-wsky’s Legende, Tartini’s Sonata The Dev-il’s Trill and Fritz Kreiisler’s romances.
Fauzia Marikar
