A FUND-RAISER FEST
lMany do theatre out of sheer passion and Gopal Pal is one of them. With a wife, two daughters and a son to take care of, Pal works as a mason. He can hardly make two ends meet but he makes sure that he does not miss any of his theatre rehearsals. He has worked for 27 years with many theatre groups in Howrah and at present acts in Anujug’s plays. He walks down from Belgachhia to Ramrajatala for rehearsals and shows of the group. Anujug organised a three-day theatre festival from January 16 to 18 at Bani Niketan hall at Ramrajatala to raise funds for Gopal. Apart from Anujug’s own play, Dinanter Alo, that will be staged on the last day, two other groups were a part of this festival.
Kalindi Natyosrijan staged Shahenshah Ebong Haripada on January 16 and Purba Paschim staged Akkel Gudum on the second day. Group members sold tickets for the shows on the three days and the collection made was presented to Pal on the last day. “We often try to organise theatre festivals to collect funds for needy theatre workers. This time we did the same for Gopal Pal. However, we managed to collect Rs 3,000 only from the sale of tickets. The amount is too small, but we had initially planned to give him a bigger sum. We hope to collect some more from sponsors for him,” said Sajal Chakraborty, the director of Anujug.
A scene from Anujug’s Dinanter Alo staged at the group’s festival
FESTIVAL OF THE SOIL
lThree-year-old theatre group, Baksara Maati, is trying to foster a cultural awareness in the neighbourhood of Baksara by organising a single-day festival, Maati Utsav. Held at Kanak Kanan Maidan on January 11 for the second consecutive year, it had dance, music, discussions and theatre, all accommodated in a single day. Maati Utsav started in the morning with songs of the soil. Adivasi dancers sang and danced in rhythm. This was followed by a seminar on theatre where actor Rishi Mukherjee and singer Swagata Mukherjee spoke on the trend of theatre in the moffusils. Theatre personalities Ajit Mukhopadhyay, Asit Baran Kundu and Aurobindo Biswas also took part. Most of the speakers believed that theatre in the moffusils is becoming obsolete as youngsters are turning away from the stage. “I had a group which I could not run for lack of newcomers. It is becoming more difficult to run theatre groups in the moffusils as youngsters are more attracted to TV and films,” said Ajit Mukhopadhyay.
Members of Baksara Maati felicitated Ajit Mukhopadhyay with the Abinash Smriti Samman 2015. In the second half of the day, Anujug staged two plays, Jatri and Bini Paisar Bhoj. Dariya, a cultural group, regaled the audience with theatre songs in between the two plays.
Dariya presents theatre songs at Maati Utsav
MEMORIAL MEET
lA grand golden jubilee celebration of theatre group, Shailpik, on January 17 turned into a memorial meeting. Members of the group paid tribute to the group’s founder, Mukul Mukhopadhyay, who died on January 10. He had started Shailpik in 1965 along with some other teachers of Sri Ramakrishna Sikshalaya. The group was registered in 1971. Since then Shailpik has done several plays by well-known playwrights. Mohit Chattopadhyay’s works have been popular productions of the group.
“We have done more than 350 shows of Mohit Chattopadhyay’s Bajpakhi and Lathi. We still get calls for Lathi. We started doing the play from 1978 which is why we decided to stage the play again at the January 17 programme with the original cast,” said Debaprasad Chakraborty, the director of the group. Lathi on January 17 was staged by actors who had acted in it in 1978. The golden jubilee programme was a precursor to events that will take place in the next one year. Shailpik members have planned three theatre festivals in the coming year along with seminars and workshops.
A scene from Shailpik’s Lathi. Pictures by Gopal Senapati
