GUNADHARER ASUKH & DWIJEN BANDOPADHYAY

Yeah, that's a weird topic for a blog post. The former is the name of this incredible play I saw at Sisir Manch the day before y'day and the latter the name of an incredible actor who played the protagonist in that play - Gunadhar.

Actually I was writing a letter to my sister and my brother in law who are currently in a boring little town in southern USA called Nashville, the home of country music. And I just didn't have much to write about so decided on telling them about this play I saw. By the time I finished it I thought let's try and make a piece out of it so here I am.

So the play GUNADHARER ASUKH has been directed by DWIJEN BANDOPADHYAY who happens to be an amazing actor. One really has to watch him perform on stage to believe what he is capable of at this age. The restraint and timing, the vocabulary, pronunciation and throw - he is the only Bengali Actor I've seen, in leading roles especially, who never overdoes his act. But somehow always manages to hit the bull's eye. What saddens me most is only a few people who happen to watch theatre gets a chance to enjoy this treat, to cherish this level of quality performance here in Bengal. Because the mega-serial-wallahs only want him to ham and the huge TV audience see him in cheap underwear and air conditioning ads.

I am still a greenhorn when it comes to watching theatre. So I have seen very few Great Bengali Actors of our times - Shyamal Chakrabarti, Bimal Mukhopadhyay, Goutam Halder and Debshankar Halder are the only ones I've watched on stage. Shyamal Chakrabarti's intensity, Bimal Mukhopadhyay's tonal innuendos (his ability to bring out sounds from mysterious corners of his body without moving his lips), Goutam Halder's jet set energy, and Deb Shankar Halder's charm. Yet somehow, especially with the last, I as an audience have always been aware of the person I am watching perform. Shyamal Chakrabarty can make me angry and make my eyes burn with tears. Bimal Chakrabarty can make me laugh so loudly I loose all breath with nothing more than a "Thak Bo?" . My friends say Goutam Halder was unrecognisable in "Meghdutam" and "Bor-da". But these plays may never get performed again and even if they do there is a very slim chance that they will have Goutam Halder in them. So I am leaving him out of the discussion. And Deb Shankar Halder - be it Aurangzeb in Shahjahan, the psychiatrist in Aguner Barnamala, or the communist party worker Sabyasachi Sen in Winkle Twinkle - I am always aware that I am watching Deb Shankar Halder perform.

But Dwijen Bandopadhyay has an incredible ability to pull the audience into the play itself. Both EI GHUM and GUNADHARER ASUKH are about complex human emotions. But the delivery of the story is without any gimmicks, the narrative simple. So however complex the issue may be, the communication is always crystal clear. Even though in Gunadhar at the beginning of the play itself the person playing Gunadhar is identified as just as an actor playing Gunadhar and not Gunadhar himself, and that the performance to be presented is going to be a play - yet, as a member of the audience as the play proceeds I find myself accepting Dwijen Bandopadhyay's portrayal of Gunadhar as Gunadhar himself. At the end again the illusion is deliberately and bluntly broken as the play is announced over and the audience is requested to keep an eye out for Gunadhar. Yet as long as the illusion is being played out I find myself accepting that as the reality.

The play proceeds at a breakneck speed propelled on by a tight script written by Pradyot Sarkar. A very well co-ordinated ensemble performance by the entire cast(though a few in the chorus could be more upright and less casual while on stage - especially while narration or while playing the instruments) keeps up the pace. Dialogues are thrown and caught at just the right scale and speed with just the right amount of emotion. Never does an actor step beyond restraint though many a times the emotions in my heart go racing ahead. Even as I vision Gunadhar's mother - when she tears off the sign from her son's back or asks her son to pick out the gray hairs from her forehead, I find myself overwhelmed. Yet, what I watch in front of me is utterly controlled, the expressions simply pleasant. Nothing is enforced on the audience. Its as Kaushik Chattopadhyay said in one of his talks ( the only talk of his that I have attended) - first step down to the level of the audience then lull them into your confidence and then say what you have to say. To say the least, I was lulled.

The use of musical instruments sets the atmosphere and adds rhythm to the narrative. When Chanda cries we hear the soft twinkling sounds which give the illusion of flowing water. No tanpura or harmonium is used, only simple acoustic instruments. The Set too doesn't blind the audience with grandeur. Nor is it static. A single long white scroll with black sketches breaks up the boredom of the upstage space and the blackness of the cyclorama and helps in making the overall visual light. Colour and glitter is added by the set up for the shop. Over all the stage is as un-gloomy and airy as Gunadhar's mind itself. And songs - there are so many melodies sung, so many songs sung by the father. It's always a delight to hear music emanate from an actor's voice - the traditional nature of live music adds another level of sincerity and simplicity to the performance. No mechanical devices.

Yes, it is a dialogue oriented play. But rarely do we see the gestures following the dialogues. The director uses simple compositional tools to create some beautiful moments. As the second half starts Gunadhar's father is heard is heard singing a ditty by Sachin Deb Burman. A young boy sits by his side, his back to the audience, and a bit of blue light is seen on the stage. The curtain opens full and the stage is lit up once again by the normal floods. Just a few seconds and the audience is pulled back once again into the tender relationship between the father and the son. For on full moon nights when the father sits humming songs to himself his madcap son sits quietly by his side and listens to him. The creation of the image need not the actor who plays Gunadhar - but the presence of a young lad heightens the fathers loneliness and makes the composition complete.

There are many such moments in the play. And several adjectives can be applied - simple, easy, beautiful, good - etc. etc. But what I liked the most was the easy expression and clarification of such a complex human emotion. To reach the audience by undoing all the knots. And it was all said in the language of theatre. Almost all the elements of theatre were used in balance with each other. So I was most happy because I saw a Complete Play.

In the language of our generation - satisfaction guaranteed.