The Queen in Her Domain

As Kanduni in Ekhono Kritodash (Still A Slave).

In stage acting, there is before Ferdausi Majumdar, and there is after Ferdausi Majumdar. And they are like two different worlds.
No other actor in the country has ever rocketed to overnight stardom on the theatre stage as Ferdausi Majumdar did in 1962, in Munier Chowdhury's play Raktakto Prantor (The Bloody Field of War) an allegory of oppression and injustice meted out to Bengalis by the Pakistani junta.

Playing Sahana in Dyasher Manush (Native People).

Abhinetar Rangamancha (The Thespian's Stage), a book featuring five articles and 350 photographs capturing various moments in her professional, family and social life was launched by professor emeritus Dr Anisuzzaman on June 19 at the National Theatre Hall of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy. Jointly organised by Theatre, her troupe and Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy a day after her 70th birth anniversary, the programme was attended by leading theatre activists. “These days, I don't have much interest in celebrating my birthday. I'll be glad if this book inspires theatre practitioners in future,” she said. When she spoke, her voice—an emotional voice, in a way cultivated and genteel, yet surprisingly fresh, a voice with a probing, girlish quality—seemed to come from sleepy distances. Her eyes, a deep and lustrous darkness, were kind and warm.

Her mesmerising performance in Ekhon Dusshomoy
(Now is the Dark Hour).

There have been many a  memorable performances on Bangladeshi stage but nothing will ever compare to the explosions set off by Ferdausi Majumdar in her stellar  portrayal of characters in Subachan Nirbashone (Good Sayings in Exile), Ekhon Dusshamoy (Now is the Dark Hour) and Chardike Juddha (Battle All Around). These were beyond a performance. What the audience was seeing was a new kind of visceral intensity onstage that the theatre cognoscenti had never experienced before. The bar for dramatic excellence was being raised before their eyes. The way Ferdausi's Ranu, Zarina and Neela came to life on stage was magical to the audience, and at the curtain there was a strange pause, as if the audience were trying to catch its breath. Then the thundering applause, the standing ovation, and the bravos came as a burst of relief that the characters' ordeal was over and that the cast could return to their dressing rooms and become themselves again. On stage her learned, rehearsed behaviour becomes most obvious to an audience and chips away, unconsciously, at its experience of reality. The audience is only inches away, and her face becomes the stage.
It seems fitting that Ferdausi Majumdar, an actor rightly credited with bringing a new dimension of realism to stage acting, can be remembered through a cavalcade of unforgettable roles: Sharmila in Dui Bone (Two sisters), Emilia/Desdemona in Othello, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, Kanduni in Ekhono Kritodash (Still a Slave), Kokila in Kokilara (Kokilas), the old lady in Payer Awaj Pawa Jay (Footsteps Are Heard) and her solo performance without words in Eka (Alone) to name a few.

She has always been vocal about social injustice.

She is an ambitious, intellectual actor and a passionate student of her craft, and she has achieved what most of her peers find impossible: remaining a major star into a charismatic old age.  A recipient of the Ekushey Padak and several awards, she was born on June 18, 1943 in Barisal in an aristocratic family that had among its members the likes of Munier Chowdhury and Kabir Chowdhury, among others. Married to Ramendu Majumdar, the president of International Theatre Institute (ITI), she has been always been surrounded  by the magic of the stage.
With more than 1,200 performances of about 35 plays to her credit spanning over more than four decades,  she has also acted in hundreds of teleplays, radio dramas and a number  of movies, drawing on her acting prowess, and unassuming intelligence and good humour that made it all seem effortless.
Her Hurmati in Shongshoptak will be remembered for years to come. It is a mesmerising performance that elucidates a great TV serial on which, ultimately, many say, Ferdausi Majumdar's enormous stature will rightly rest.

The book on the kaleidoscopic journey of the iconic actress was launched by professor emeritus Dr Anisuzzaman. Photo: Prabir Das

A moment of pride: After daughter Tropa received a gold
medal for academic excellence.

Active in the mass movement of the 90s, the protest rally of Combined Cultural Alliance and the movement demanding capital punishment of the war criminals, she has been passionately committed to social causes that shape our life.     At the book launching ceremony, Mamunur Rashid paid his respect by saying, “We who fight with a wooden sword salute you.”
With her academic credentials, she could easily get a job in a university but she has chosen to teach at a school.  Maybe she needs to find something in life, something in herself, that is permanently true, and she finds it in children. Her adaptation of Swedish and German folk tales into Bengali for children reflects her deep love and affection for children. In  her book Noori Kahini (Story of Noori) she gave a human face to the innumerable domestic workers whose hard work often go unappreciated by the society. Her compassion for others is revered by everyone who comes to know her. Late Pandit Barin Majumder called her “The very epitome of the Blessed Mother.”
Once during an acting class, Stella Adler, Marlon Brando's  teacher, told her students to pretend to be chickens on which an atomic bomb was about to fall. The rest of the students ran around clucking loudly and looking frantically at the sky, but Brando  just sat there calmly — he was the mother hen, busy laying her eggs. What would a hen know or care about a bomb?
There is no doubt that Ferdausi Majumdar would have done something similar to what Brando did if ever given such an acting test.
Some critics say that she is the quintessential Bangladeshi actor of our time, still snared in outmoded theatrical concepts. Truth is she is the iconic actor who has forever transformed the art of acting in Bangladesh and still electrifies the audience with her acting.

In one of her most critically acclaimed role: Meherjan in Meherjan Arekbar (Meherjan Once Again).

With her academic background, she could get a job at a university, but she chose to teach at a school.