Press Release

Theatron

Presents

Mitrapuran

A play by Vijay Tendulkar

Directed by: Trina Nileena Banerjee

Time: 6 pm

Date: 26^th August

Venue: Gyan Manch

Mitrapuran: Ideas and Intentions

About the Play:

Theatron's new production Mitrapuran takes us back to an indefinite time in India's history- a time in the last century where homosexual desire, in our country and elsewhere, was still marked by the absence of a language that could express it. It was, in fact, an absence in itself - an empty space where identities, personal histories and lives were lost. 'Political' history wrote itself without an admission of this loss –without acknowledging the presence of women and men who desired, let alone those who desired differently. And even as a nation moved towards Freedom, stories remained untold. Identities were wiped out. History cleansed itself, ran on clearly-blameless tracks. Political freedom was defined alongside what was deemed to be neither political nor deserving of freedom.

What remained was memory.

Mitrapuran is one such memory.

Pages from a diary one is compelled to listen to. A story that one man is compelled to tell.

Our sutradhar is Srikant Marathe (Bapu) - a brooding, middle-aged man - who tells us the story of Sumitra Dev, a girl he used to know in college several decades ago. In those days, Bapu was a gawky student from out of town (the town is Poona, we conjecture). Sumitra cames from a rich family that lived in a bungalow near the Deccan Gymkhana, one of its posh localities. Bapu and Mitra become friends over chai and cycle rides. Days go by. Mitra is loud, confident and too much 'like a man' for anyone's comfort. Then one day, Mitra falls in love with a girl in her class. She is elated, exuberant but Bapu is scared for her. As the play progresses, Bapu takes us through the following years in Mitra's life, years that are now etched in his memory – years that lead to a horrifying end for Mitra.

Mitrapuran uses music and visuals to create an era that has gone by. The music on an old valve radio takes Bapu back to his youth – it is to him, the only marker of that time. With Bapu, we listen to old LPs on the radio – the thumris of Rasoolan Bai, songs by K.L. Saigal and Noorjehan. The music in itself is the map of a time; something that helps chart a memory that threatens to grow increasingly hazy. The vocals by Sudeshna Dutta Chaudhuri capture for us some of the pearls of North Indian classical music – renditions that promise to stay with you long after the play is over. Snapshots of Bapu's memory and fantasy appear as images in the performing space - which in itself is fragmentary and dislocated. The stills are captured by young documentary film maker Debolina and the performing space is designed by the very young art director Abhijay Gupta.

Mitrapuran is a play by Vijay Tendulkar. The translation is by Salil Bandyopadhyay.

About the Group:

We've always chosen plays that are beyond our means. If we want to define the character of our group, that single sentence should do it. We have remained around for nearly 30 years now, in Kolkata, the cultural capital of India, and we have survived despite our dogmatic stand.

We are part of Theatron. We are part of a group that has never gone for numbers, that has always measured success by the aesthetic standards it has been able to set, and the extent to which it has been able to enthrall and captivate and touch the people.

The group was formed in April, 1974. Our directors have been Sri Salil Bandyopadhyay and Saswati Biswas.

Our past productions include: Pratham Partho and Sankranti (Buddhadeb Basu,1978-1979), Tughluq (Girish Karnad,1979-1980), Tapaswi–O-Taragini (Buddhadeb Basu, 1981 AND 1998), Medea (Euripides, 1983), Raja Lear (Shakespeare, 1986 ), Sada Ghora (Rosmersholm –Ibsen, 1988), Bisarjan ( Rabindranath Thakur, 1990), Khelaghar (The Time and The Conways, J B Priestley,1992), Asangato ( Salil Bandyopadhyay,1995), Tomar Andhar Tomar Alo – (The Gift of The Gorgon , Peter Shaffer, 1999), Kaalbela ( A Man For All Seasons, Robert Bolt, 2000-2001), Tomari Matir Kanya – ( The Trojan Women: Euripides, 2002), Mrityumukhar Ek Dui – (The Man With The Flower in His Mouth / Ai Ladki : Luigi Pirandello/Krishna Sobti, 2004), Shey – ( The Woman in Black: Susan Hill/Stephen Mallatratt, 2005) and Bernarda Albar Bari - (The House of Bernarda Alba, Federico Garcia Lorca, 2006).

Mitrapuran (2007) directed by Trina Nileena Banerjee is Theatron's latest venture.

About the Director:

Trina Nileena Banerjee (26)

After completing her MA in English Literature from Jadavpur University, Trina Nileena Banerjee proceeded to complete a Masters of Studies (MSt.) in English at the University of Oxford on a Felix Scholarship. Her specializations were Postcolonial Literature, British Modernism and Feminism.

In 2005, her first film Nisshabd (directed by Jahar Kanungo, where she plays the female lead) was screened at the 7th Osian Film Festival in Delhi. Here she won the Best Actress Award in the Indian Competition. Nisshabd has gone on to achieve wide international acclaim - having been screened (or scheduled for screening in the near future) at festivals in Pusan, Turkey, Thailand, Dubai, Denver and other places. Nisshabd was also screened at the Kolkata International Film Festival in November, 2005. Trina was invited as a delegate to the Dubai International Film Festival in 2005 and to the Karachi International Film Festival in 2006. In 2007, Chinese Whispers a film by Raka Dutta, in which Trina played a rag-picker, was selected as the only official Indian entry to the Cannes Film Festival. This film also went to the Lisbon Film Festival in the same year.

Trina is also an experienced theatre performer, having worked for more than ten years with Theatron; also performing in plays staged by the Jadavpur University English Department and other prominent Calcutta theatre groups. In 2003, she directed her first production Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (produced by Theatron). Here she explored contemporary issues of identity, sexuality and the open market. A production of Tennessee Williams' plays followed in early 2006.

Writers Workshop published Trina's first book of poems Inside A Blue Corridor in 2001.

She has been a freelance journalist since 2000, having written for The Statesman, The Asian Age and The Telegraph. She has written about theatre and performance theory for these papers, as well as done numerous campus theatre reviews. She also conceived and co-edited a fortnightly column called The Beat for The Statesman about alternative artistic expression about young people in the city, which ran for more than a year (2002-2003).
She is currently a Doctoral Fellow at CSSS, Kolkata.

Mitrapuran is her third directorial venture and her first production (as director) in Bengali.