NASEERUDDIN SHAH: The Thespian coming to Dhaka
Film aficionados of Bangladesh are no stranger to Naseeruddin Shah's genius, but pretty much all of it is limited to his films. Agreed, that is an illustrious volume of work, but it is just one dimension of the masterful Indian actor's catalogue. He is one of the most prominent figures of Indian theatre, and the Dhaka audience will get to experience it for the first time, come April.
Blues Communications is organising the staging of Naseeruddin Shah-directed play “Ismat Apa Ke Naam” by his theatre troupe Motley, on April 21 at the International Convention City Bashundhara (ICCB). Naseeruddin Shah also acts in the production, along with daughter Heeba Shah and wife Ratna Pathak Shah.
The play is actually a celebration of Ismat Chughtai (1915-1991), an iconic writer and poet from India, considered the grand dame of Urdu fiction. She was a lighthouse of feminist ideology in Urdu literature, and her outspoken, controversial writing style has made her a seminal figure of the genre.
The three short stories by Chughtai narrated in the play – “Chui Mui”, “Gharwali” and “Mughal Bacha”, all essentially deal with women and their survival in a male-dominated society. The music of the production has been done by Vishal Bhardwaj.
“Chui Mui”, enacted by Heeba Shah is the first act of the play, and tells the story of a woman whose sole aim in life is to mother a child so her husband doesn't leave her for another woman. The second act is “Mughal Bacha” and is enacted by Ratna Pathak Shah, another familiar face among close followers of Indian cinema. Told in the form of traditional grandmother's stories, Pathak switches between narrator and actor to tell the story of how the wives of past rulers had to bear the burden of their husbands' arrogance. The third act, “Gharwali” has Naseeruddin Shah himself take the stage, in a story of a beautiful girl who a rich man marries and then sort of discards from his life.
City Bank is the title sponsor of the event. Details of tickets for the play can be found on the Facebook page of Blues Communications.
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