A moment from the Bohurupee production of Mister Kakatua

Theatre group Bohurupee organised a festival of five plays at the Academy of Fine Arts from April 29 to May 1 to celebrate 64 years of its existence.

The group, which seemed to have been floundering with the demise of two of its senior mentors — Kumar Roy and Tarapada Mukhopadhyay — in quick succession in 2010 and 2011 respectively, impressed with teamwork and enthusiasm. But then, Bohurupee, begun by the likes of Gangapada Basu, Ashok Majumdar, Manoranjan Bhattacharya, Sombhu Mitra and Tripti Mitra, has always been able to counter setbacks.

“The towering personalities who built and nurtured the group are gone but they have laid such a strong foundation that even mediocre people like us can keep the wheels moving,” said Gautam Bose, the president of Bohurupee. “Doing theatre nowadays is difficult because most people use the medium as a stepping stone to other things. The dedication and passion for theatre, which the founders of Bohurupee took for granted, is today almost impossible to find.”

The festival was also a milestone for Bose because it marked the 25th year of Mister Kakatua, a play for which he had been given the state best actor award.

Prashanta Deb’s Bengali adaptation of Mary Chase’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Harvey had premiered on May 1, 1987, and has, like Sajano Bagaan, Marich Sangbad, Gorur Garir Headlight and many others, remained popular for over 25 years. To mark the occasion, a commemorative booklet was released at a ceremony on the first day of the festival, where Bohurupee announced that mementoes would be handed to all the actors and technicians involved in the first show at a later date.

Some of the actors who had been in the original Mister Kakatua cast are still in the play, such as Gautam Bose, Debesh Roy Chowdhury, Tulika Das and Sukriti Lahiri. Khaled Chaudhury who, along with Kumar Roy, Tapas Sen, Arghya Sen and others, had been part of the team that approved Bose’s rendition of the role of Maniklal Sarkhel, was there as chief guest.

Visibly pleased at all the adulation he had received, Bose recalled how hard it had been to bring the character to life. Till Mister Kakatua, he had primarily been a backstage worker, playing bit roles. True, he had been appreciated by Satyajit Ray for his tiny role in Rajdarshan, but playing the lead in a Bohurupee production was a different deal.

Director Kumar Roy, who had been urging him to use his own understanding of the play, had been overjoyed when Bose had moulded his opening dialogue to a typical style used by Sombhu Mitra while taking a telephone call.

The festival presented plays like Chhanch Bhanga Murti, Mister Kakatua, Dipdanda and Beerjyasulka. The new play Nana Phuler Mala directed by Debesh Roy Chowdhury staged on May 1 was, however, disappointing. The text by Alokh Muhopadhyay draws on the Mahabharat but seems bland, confusing and amateurish coming after the masterly takes on the epic by Manoj Mitra and Buddhadeva Bose.

A photographic display of Bohurupee’ s past Tagore productions like Char Aadhyay, Raktakarabi, Bisarjan, Raja, Muktadhara, Dakghar, Sargiya Prahashan and Malini mounted to mark Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary, was however commendable. The 117th edition of the Bohurupee journal was released.

The group will launch a new production directed by Tulika Das in June.