Synopsis
This latest Production of Naye Natua may claim distinction on many counts. The production has been mounted simultaneously in Bengali, English and Hindi: Maramiya Mon and The Gentle Spirit.
On the stage, we see and hear the lonesome inscape of an endangered soul; in the process, we experience story-telling of a different genre. We never know who the audience is, the launching pad, the father confessor, the judge, and the other of this narrator. Isn’t that what a man precisely does while searching for the innermost invisible and unknown still point? The performer here speaks, mumbles, moves, stumbles and eventually discovers his style of story-telling. In this Production, Tapas Sen responded to the words of Dostoyevsky with the artistry of a master painter; time and again, he ushered us from the external to the innards, from the informative to the experimental, from the daily to the elemental. Sanchayan Ghosh plays like a conductor with innumerable notes of colours and leads us into a kind of ancient cave – a frozen symphony of colours and contours. In Swatilekha Sengupta’s music, our classical raga Yaman blends into the structure of the Western Classical, creating an ambience of profound sadness; yet, amidst this grand music, one, again and again, hears a faint wail which begins to echo and re-echo the eternal cry of a haunted soul. And all these have been catalysed in this production by the dedicated labour and pure sweat of Naye Natua and Naye Natua; everything has revolved around the Acting of Goutam Halder, which is at once alert, ferocious, volcanic, transparently childlike and often, holily disinterested! All these combine to make Maramiya Mon / The Gentle Spirit a luminous addition to contemporary Bengali Theatre.
Rudraprasad Sengupta
