Bratya Basu

Bratyajon, the three-year-old Bengali theatre group steered by actor/director-turned-education minister Bratya Basu, has spawned four new centres.

The centres are at Ashoknagar, Howrah, Khardah and Ballygunge and have been set up by theatre actors, directors and enthusiasts inspired by Basu and his brand of plays, built around “present-day problems and characters unafraid to speak their minds”.

Some of the most popular plays by Basu include Winkle Twinkle, Ruddhasangeet and Ashaleen.

Debasish Biswas, the director of Howrah Bratyajon, said: “It isn’t easy for Bengali theatre to thrive and new groups are always either forming or breaking up. Some of us freelance theatre practitioners or those with different groups have been motivated by the fresh edge that Bratya Basu has brought to Bengali theatre. He has changed our mindset and broken down rigid norms and dated traditions. We want to spread his philosophy of doing theatre that is experimental and will attract youngsters.”

Basu is taking a step back and letting the directors appointed for each Bratyajon take charge. “Since they want to use Bratyajon as a theatre movement, I am there to support them and offer any guidance or advice they want. More than an extension, I’d call it a cluster of groups under the Bratyajon umbrella. I’d want a Bratyajon in every district,” he said.

While there is no compulsion on the groups to propagate plays written or directed by Basu, the plays staged will bear his signature stamp of “doing theatre the right way”. In other words, theatre that is “socially relevant, sensational, raises awareness while being commercially viable”, Basu added.

Involving youngsters, hosting regular workshops and publishing a quarterly periodical are common to all Bratyajons.

The first production of a new Bratyajon will be Jayoman, written by Amitabha Samajpati and to be staged by the Howrah centre in the last week of August. “It’s about a college girl who goes on a trip with friends but retreats into a shell on returning, how she comes to terms with reality and manages to survive,” Biswas explained.