It?s a shame that on Sunday evening the auditorium at Rabindra Sadan, where Swabak performed Shasti ? a play based on Tagore?s short story, dramatised by Biru Mukhopadhyay ? was largely empty. Should the Calcutta Book Fair be blamed? Director Nilima Chakraborty showed her prowess by rendering a complex story about exploitation in a visually simple language, punched with humour and packaged attractively. She did a very good job, for instance, of evoking atmosphere ? rain-lashed, storm-struck villages ? with the help of light and sound. However, in spite of having the potential to do so, the production failed to attain a certain height. It got stuck at depicting stereotypical characters and situations. The acting was good, despite imitations of predictable behaviour. Chakraborty has an eye for detail, but she failed to look beyond the obvious.
Dola Mitra
Music of the soul is what baul sangeet stands for. Matir Surey Aamar Sadhan, presented by Probahini as part of the annual programme of the Kiwanis Club of Calcutta at Behala Sarat Sadan on February 5, partly explored Tagore?s spiritual music and his tryst with the music of the baul composers like Ananda Chandra Mitra, Gagan Harkara, Lalan Fakir and Harinath Majumdar during his riverine sojourns at Silaidaha. The presentation gained pace and spirit from performances by Shankar Ganguly, Sudipto Ghosh and Shibani Kundu, to name a few. Anirudhha Sinha and Apala Basu?s solos stood apart from the rest. The chorus should have been more synchronised.
Mohua Mitra
Junko Ueno Garrett?s performance at the Calcutta School of Music on January 29 bore testimony to her pianistic skill. In a programme that featured compositions by Scarlatti (three sonatas), Liszt (Un Sospiro), Schumann (four movements from Phantasiestucke) and Rachmaninoff (three preludes), she interspersed works by three composers of her country ? Konsaka Yamada, Hikaru Hayashi and Yoshinao Nakada. Dr Garrett?s technique in the lyrical music of her country and the baroque precision of Scarlatti was commendable. However, the works of Liszt, Schumann and Rachmaninoff were played with a curiously dispassionate sense of dispatch, redeemed wholly by the Japanese works and Scarlatti.
Fauzia Marikar
