Back to Tagore, whose plays have never seen such an awakening of interest, not even in his centenary year. In fact, we can say for a certainty that Bengali audiences have not encountered so many novel theatrical approaches to him from both within and outside the state. Arghya’s Journey to Dakghar illustrates one of the new strategies: instead of staging a text straight, especially one that pretty much everyone knows by heart, create a script by placing the source in a different context, in this case, its own history.

In theory, this seems exciting. In practice, writer-director Manish Mitra does not cover all the important events in the life of Dakghar. For starters, he should suggest the biographical link between the tragic death of Tagore’s ten-year-old son, Samindranath, in 1907 and the dying boy Amal, imaginatively conceived in 1911 no doubt to make sense of his irreparable loss. Mitra does mention the English translation, The Post Office, but given that its world premiere took place in Dublin in 1913, he should surely enact at least one scene from it, all the more since he incorporates English dialogue in Journey. Moreover, the world-famous Abbey Theatre had staged this, under the direction of Yeats and Lady Gregory, with sets by the respected Lennox Robinson — a landmark well documented and worth remembering. Mitra then references the 1917 Jorasanko production in some detail, erecting an approximation of Gaganendranath’s thatch-hut design.

Tagore liked the German Post Office at the pioneering Volksbühne, Berlin (1922), the best among the foreign versions, but Mitra ignores it. He should also sample a few passages from André Gide’s French translation, broadcast over the radio in Paris on the eve of the Nazi invasion. His production history eventually settles into long extracts from Janusz Korczak’s recently rediscovered 1942 production for the Warsaw Ghetto orphans (picture) before the Nazis transported them to Treblinka. Bengali viewers may find this of great interest, but those who have seen Sunil Shanbag’s Walking to the Sun (which Mitra has, too) and who know of its inspiration, Jill Parvin’s Post Office (London, 1993), may not feel particularly awestruck.

How, one may ask, can Arghya fit in the significant extra details without extending their show overmuch? Simply by chopping their rather static 12-minute prelude and the false double ending where a natural conclusion leads to another, superfluous, not-so-natural one. The acting is fine, led by intense performances from Mitra himself as the Daiwala and Mihir Das as the uncle, while Srijan Das makes an innocent Amal. Sanchayan Ghosh’s multilevel set imparts a functional metatheatricality as well as an uplifting outward momentum.

Rangroop’s dramatization of Tagore’s mid-career short story, Patra o Patri, gives the gently ironic original greater poignancy. The protagonist, Sanat, drifts through life after his father vetoes a match arranged by his mother, becoming a postgraduate and a successful businessman but failing to get married after several abortive attempts. Yet, at the end, he gains a family that removes his loneliness in an unexpected twist of fate. Sima Mukhopadhyay adds a few characters but remains more or less faithful and, as always, directs her team in subtly nuanced characterizations.

Jayanta Mitra plays the lead, expressing a resigned acceptance of what destiny has handed him. His parents (Debasish Raychaudhuri and Pritha Banerjee, respectively) bring in much of the initial comedy. And as in Dakghar, Mukhopadhyay invents a child’s role, a “granddaughter”, sweetly portrayed by Chirantani Datta Chaudhuri. However, Rangroop’s weak link again is the set, not differentiated enough for various locations, often retaining identical furniture in houses separated by time or place.

Patra o Patri is a relatively lighter Tagorean work, which receives competent treatment from an accomplished group. In contrast, Theatre Spandan is much less experienced but too ambitiously takes on the huge responsibility of dramatizing the novel, Shesher Kabita. Sourav Gupta manages to barely present the storyline. And as director, he fails to instil the minimum maturity required in his young cast to project not just Tagore’s star-crossed lovers but even their Anglicized friends.