About Me
Being well equipped both in Indian classical song and dance , Goutam is most successful in formulating a different style of acting of his own that has been influencing the Bengali stage even today.
Goutam Halder, the doyen of Bengali as well as Indian theatre started his journey as an actor – director in 1986 and from then he has been amazing the world of national and international theatre with his sheer mastery of the art. He has appeared so far in a variety of 100 different roles on stage as an actor and has directed more than 40 plays.
The theatrical journey since 1986
Meghnadbadh Kabya legacy
His magnum opus production , a solo performance of the great epic of Michael Madhusudan Dutta , ‘Meghnadbadh Kabya’ in 1993 at once captivated the audience with awe and wonder and earned him national and international fame. It is commonly regarded as a milestone production of Indian theatre that stimulated the national poet like Sri Sankha Ghosh to pen an article on it and another famous Bengali poet Sri Joy Goswami to compose a poem on the performance of the said epic
Goutam Halder is a name revered as a mentor and tutor of dramatics and his relentless endeavor in conducting regular theatre workshops, trainings for the upcoming theater artists is a blessing to the posterity of Bengali theatre
Thereafter Goutam’s genius as an actor
was proved in the performance of
‘Borda Borda’ , a short story by
famous Indian writer Munsi
Premchand .
Being well equipped both in
Indian classical song and dance ,
Goutam is most successful in formulating a
different style of acting of his own
that has been influencing the Bengali stage
even today. With this versatility
and brilliance of his acting skill Goutam
has explored a completely new vistas
of performing art where poems and songs get
an unique and most enliving way of
theatrical expression and it becomes evident
in his amazing presentation of
‘Kabye Gaane’ ( an enactment of
poems and songs including
Rabindranath Tagore ).
Goutam’s mastery of the genre as an
actor and director is once again
proven in the production of ‘Thakurmar
Jhuli’ , based on a Bengali
fairy tale where he has delved deep into the
roots of Bengali folk culture and
its strains to revive the very essence of
tradition in modernity in a most
entertaining way.
Goutam’s
portrayal of the Shakespeare’s hero
‘Othello’ (in Bengali
translation) is an instance how profundity
in
passion and brevity in expression can rich
the pinnacle of tragic
cataclysm.
Again Goutam’s
proficiency in creating absurdity on stage
with the magical effect is reflected in the
play ‘Haoai’ ( Bengali
translation of The Eleventh Planet by Evald
Flisar).
Goutam’s other
notable production includes ‘Matir
Gari Mrichchhakatika’ , the
classical Sanskrit play by Shudrak in
Bengali translation , where all the
elements of century old Indian performing
art – songs , music , acting and
aromosity converge into a crescendo of
classical theatrical art.
Besides being an actor and a director Goutam Halder is a name revered as a mentor and tutor of dramatics and his relentless endeavor in conducting regular theatre workshops, trainings for the upcoming theater artists is a blessing to the posterity of Bengali theatre.
Goutam’s another achievement lies in the theatrical experiment with ‘Moimonsingha Geetika’ , a folk ballad of Mymensingh , Bangladesh , in which he makes a brilliant unison of music and dance form of traditional Bengal with the tint of modernity enough. This sort of theatrical extravaganza undoubtedly becomes an inspirational part of modern Bengali theater performance.
Goutam Halder as Lecturer & Demonstrator
- Georgia University in Athens, Georgia, USA
- Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Scotland, UK
- International Dance & Theatre Festival, Goteborg, Sweden – 2002