Poised on the brink of new innings, Bohurupee looks back at classics

KOLKATA: On May 1, the country’s oldest group theatre,

Bohurupee

, will complete a journey of 70 years. To celebrate, the group has planned an experiment — re-do some of the landmark plays of

Shambhu

and Tripti Mitra. It won’t be easy, the members admit, but it would be a step towards the future.


The festivities have already started. An exhibition to commemorate the seven-decade journey has been organised in the South Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts. Rare vignettes from plays like ‘

Rakta Karabi

’ (Red Oleander), ‘

Putul Khela

’ (Doll’s House), ‘Oedipus’, ‘Char Adhyay’, ‘Visharjan’, ‘Malini’, and ‘Raja’ have been showcased, along with costumes worn by the actors in them.

A theatre festival has also been planned from April 30 to May 2, when a new play written by Tirthankar Chandra and directed by Debesh Roy Chowdhury, ‘Ratan Sir’, will make its debut. ‘Katha Nalanda’, which made its debut last year to mark the beginning of the group’s 70th anniversary, will also be staged during the festival. It depicts that period of history when Bakhtiyar Khilji had conspired to destroy Nalanda.

Two of the group’s betterknown plays, ‘Fullaketur Pala’, originally directed by Kumar Roy, and Tagore’s ‘Notir Puja’, directed by

Sutapa Aon

, will also be part of the festival. Theatre and art critic Shamik Bandyopadhyay will be felicitated at the beginning of the festival.

“For years we had been receiving requests to revive plays, like ‘Muktodhara’, ‘Raktakarabi’ and ‘Raja’, which Shambhu da and boudi (as Tripti Mitra was called), had stunned the world with. We were scared because these plays are still alive in the people’s psyche and any new production will definitely be compared, maybe even challenged. But finally we have decided that since times have changed, and with it the socio-economic set-up of the country, bringing in a younger lot of audience with a completely different mind-set, we should try to once again present these plays, perhaps with a fresh perspective,” said

Sushanta Das

, spokesperson for Bohurupee.