Two recent dramatizations of Tagorean fiction feature the enlightenment and empowerment of their famous, domestically-cloistered heroines: Bimala in Pancham Vaidik’s Ghare-Baire and Giribala in Shohan’s Manbhanjan. Both find resolutions to the romantic triangles that entrap and threaten to annihilate them.

But director Arpita Ghosh (picture, as Bimala) refuses to accept Ghare-Baire as a triangular romance. She sees it as much more significantly political, Bimala representing all Indians about to choose their path, even now. For Ghosh, Nikhilesh signifies truth, difficult yet permanent, whereas ‘leaders’ like Sandip are exigent and temporal, attractive and easier to follow, seducing the young. In the acid test of the riot instigated by the Hindu Right, Sandip flees while Nikhilesh jumps to the rescue, symbolizing future hope. Ghosh creates a succinct script from the lengthy novel by sticking to her interpretation, and foregrounding Bimala — whose memoirs occupy as much as half the book — which Ghosh must have noted.

In performance, despite her thesis, the three main characters’ personal entanglements receive intense scrutiny, which works for the best, because to show them only as ideological cut-outs would have made her play didactic. The lack of a set actually narrows our lens further on their conflict. Debdut Ghosh and Shantilal Mukherjee construct the opposed men out of flesh and blood — very convincing portrayals. Ghosh herself takes Bimala centrestage, transforming her from an immature housewife to a woman conscious of her ability to inspire, and finally to her realization of the right route to national progress.

The same process should have transpired in Manbhanjan; Tagore clearly prioritized Giribala (he even named his own translation after her), but Anindita Bandyopadhyay suggests neither her youth nor her hauteur, stunting Giribala’s development from self-absorbed teenager to commercial star. The director, Anish Ghosh, offers far more sophisticated acting himself as her hedonistic husband besotted by the leading lady, Labanga.

One must blame the dramatist, Ujjwal Chattopadhyay, for failing to convert this eminently stageworthy short story. Tagore gave enough scope for its elaboration, beginning with the married couple as children and ending with police entering the auditorium. His descriptions of various productions allow possibilities of multiple historical glimpses into 19th-century Bengali theatre that Chattopadhyay does not capitalize on. Tagore alluded to the “falseness” of professional acting, and a range of plays from a Vaishnava devotional metatheatrically titled Manbhanjan, showcasing dancing gopis, to the climactic domestic Manorama (whose content Chattopadhyay strangely tries to improve with “more potent symbology”).

Ghosh cannot deliver on this variety. We cannot believe in Labanga’s celebrity status. The token gopis dance an apology. Visual spectacle goes abegging. Only Prabir Dutta as the leading man compensates with his posturing and baritone.