(Top and above) The original and recent editions of Football produced by Nandikar; (right) Shyamanand Jalan in Ebong Indrajit

Old plays are resurfacing on the Calcutta stage but not necessarily in the old avatar. With the passage of time all plays have to be redefined and interpreted in the language of the age.

Theatregoers across Bengal would probably like to see Arun Mukhopadhyay play Jagannath again, but the man himself has reservations. Age has wrought changes in him; even if he could enact this physically demanding play, his mind would call for a change in perception. ?We did 400 shows and I didn?t do too many other roles after that. I know there is a great demand for the play but when I did the play in 2004-5, there were noticeable changes in the way I delivered the dialogues, some liked it some didn?t?. Someone else can do it of course, but I no longer have the energy to guide him,? mused Mukhopadhyay.

A similar detachment seems to envelop Badal Sircar whose Ebong Indrajit looks headed for a revival some 33 years after it was staged for the first time. ?The play had started as personal jottings, part of a diary written while in London in the 1960s, and was staged in 1973 at a festival hosted by the Manipur Sangeet Natak Academy. That was the only time we did it in the proscenium; thereafter it was always done in the anganmancha, with many shows done on the upper floor of the Academy of Fine Arts,? says Sircar.

?Then some people spread the news that I had grown to dislike the play, which was totally wrong,? he adds with a laugh. But Sircar maintains he remains only in an advisory capacity as his group Satabdi presents Ebong Indrajit with a brand new cast. No one from the original version (except Sircar himself) remains in the team.

Shyamanand Jalan believes that it was his version of Ebong Indrajit done in Hindi in 1966 that allowed him ?into the Bengali theatre world because it was appreciated by all theatre personalities of the time?.

But he insists that a lot of rethinking would be needed if they were to do it all over again. ?It is not the play but the theatrical language that has become dated, we would need to take a fresh approach,? feels Jalan.

Change with the passage of time is mandatory on revival route. ?It all depends on the content. Some plays like Utpal Dutt?s Dushswapner Nagari cannot be revived as easily as Manusher Adhikare,? says Koushik Sen, actor and director of Swapnasandhani.

?There are changes that happen every few years with language and the way we say things; we need to incorporate these. We had to change the slang when we did Jodubangsho 21 years after the original Theatre Guild production.?

According to Kumar Roy, Bohurupee doesn?t believe in ?throwing away? popular plays; they continue to be part of the repertoire to be revived at any given moment as in the recent festival when old plays were staged with minimal changes. ?Only when an actor becomes old (like me, you can?t expect me to play Galileo again) or is no more are there changes,? feels the veteran director.

Nandikar?s Maromiya Mon has returned to stage after a gap of five years. But the play that Gautam Haldar says scripted his ?best performance ever? had to change in keeping with the times and his own sensitivity as an actor. ?It is not just the costume, the language or the sets that underline the exploration of mental space, but the reading of the character. I think it has grown subtler, deeper and clearer with time.?

Sometimes, the resurrection works out just fine. Says Rudraprasad Sengupta: ?When we revived Football in 1986 after a nine-year gap it was a better production. Our team was much better trained in music, dance, body language. Gautam played the central character, Sohini and Swatilekha had also joined in. We gave more thought to costume and other technicalities, so the impact was much stronger.?