Manoj Mitra in Sajano Bagaan

Theatre legend Manoj Mitra turns 75 this December. To celebrate the occasion, his group Sundaram is organising a six-day theatre festival. Several groups will pay tribute to Mitra through their performances on April 28, 29 and 30 at the Academy of Fine Arts and Sisir Mancha and on May 5, 6 and 7 at Madhusudan Mancha.

From the late 70s to 90s, during the heyday of the group theatre movement, at least three major groups in Calcutta used to stage Mitra’s plays simultaneously. In fact, it was partly because playwright Bibhas Chakraborty chose to do Narak Guljaar that Mitra was forced to write another landmark play, Sajano Bagaan, for his own group, Sundaram.

Mitra’s major plays include Chakbhanga Madhu, Narak Guljaar, Aswathama, directed by Chakraborty (then a member of Theatre workshop), and Pakhi, directed by Tripti Mitra for Bohurupee.

His plays were huge successes on radio and many were translated into Manipuri, Hindi, Assamese, Odia, Tamil and English.

“It does feel nice when someone writes from Jammu or Australia to ask permission to stage my play,” said Mitra.

For the festival, a play reading of Aswathama by Mitra, Soumitra Chatterjee and Chakraborty, and an interview of the legend by Bratya Basu and Chakraborty are on the cards. The Hindi version of Alakananadar Putrakanya — Alka — will be presented by Little Thespians and Sudip Gupta’s Dolls Theatre will premiere a puppet show of Saheb Bagaaner Sundari.

Kaushik Chatterjee and Santipur Sanskritik will stage a more recent play, Gandhojaale, while Bhagirather Murti translated into Rajbangsi will be performed by veteran Harimadhab Mukhopadhyay’s team, Triteertha of Balurghat. A group of doctors from Birmingham are staging Prabhat Firey Esho as their tribute to Mitra.