A scene from Jadiyo Sandhya at Academy of Fine Arts, Calcutta

City theatre group Swabak is very creative with lights. If you sit through any of its productions, what will strike you, apart from its obvious predilection for stories with a social-conscience, is the use of light. In fact, usually it is so unobtrusive, you might not even notice it. Among the more memorable of group member and technician Tapan Banerjee’s works is the controlled use of the dimmer to indicate the melting of day into night in Shasti. And more recently, the creation of soft sunlight streaming into a sitting room set in Nastya Nirman, using amber coloured German paper.

Lighting also seems to be the strong point of the plays of the other theatre groups which Swabak invites each year to perform at its anniversary festival.

The brilliant use of light in Swapno Sandhani’s Bankubabur Bandhu (July 11, Rabindra Sadan) simply dazzled at the festival this year held between July 9 and July 11, in celebration of Swabak’s turning 16.

Based on the short story by Satyajit Ray about an alien’s visit to earth, the play banks big time on the aspect of spectacle to create a science-fiction world replete with glow-in-the-dark space ships and goggle-eyed beings from outer space, with flashing eyeballs, flapping ears and flaring nostrils. Ashok Pramanik (the group’s lights technician) does a fabulous job of stringing together tiny tinker-bell bulbs to create a sparkling tapestry, which spread out vertically across the length of the dark stage transports you to the extraterrestrial orb of shimmering stars and glimmering galaxies. Sanchayan Ghosh’s set ? evoking both earth and space in equal minimalist measure ? and Reshmi Sen’s costume ? from the funny flapping antennae on the space entity’s head to the drab dhotis worn by the earthlings also contribute to the creation of atmosphere.

The action is interrupted periodically by musical refrains - songs sung live by boys in the group. But it took the number, Prithivi, from Gautam Chatterjee’s band Mohiner Ghora Guli, rendered in the baritone of Animesh Bhaduri, to fill the auditorium with a sense and sound of the universe.

But in spite of the comi-cosmic atmosphere, the production is not exactly out of this world. The humour doesn’t really take off as smoothly as the E.T’s spaceship. Still, as far as children’s theatre is concerned, Bankubabur Bandhu is another feather in the cap of director Kaushik Sen, who forayed into this genre last year with Bhalo Rakshasher Galpo, based on a short story by Jaya Mitra, which was a fusion of fairytale and science-fiction.

Another children’s play, Jadiyo Sandhya (July 14, Academy of Fine Arts), directed by Rama Prasad Banik for Nehru Children’s Museum, highlights the gradual re-emergence of good children’s productions in the city. If the theme is somewhat wishy-washy ? the erosion of cultural values reflected in a general disregard for Rabindrasangeet ? the all-children cast more than compensate for it with amazingly mature acting (portraying both adult and children). And some excellent renditions of Rabindrasangeet. Banik’s strength is in his ability to bring out the subtle, the grey areas of human behaviour ? neither the virtuous nor the ostensibly villainous are without their faults.