Theatre in Round : A treat for an intimate audience
The circular stage represents the “Chaka” or the wheel. Photo: RIdwan Adid Rupon
For the first time, the Department of Theatre of Dhaka University (DU) is going to stage a Selim Al Deen Play titled “Chaka”. The play will be staged on three consecutive days (August 18-20) at Natmandal in the campus, marking Selim Al Deen's 64th birth anniversary. The show will start at 7pm everyday. A special show for the press/ media and the invited guests will also be held at 7pm on August 17 at the venue.
Al Deen's friend and a DU Professor of the Department of Theatre, Syed Jamil Ahmed has translated “Chaka” in English and Hindi, and directed it in the USA, India and Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, Dhaka Theatre produced the play. Noted filmmaker Morshedul Islam has made a feature film with the same title too.
The story of “Chaka” zooms in on a cart-driver, along with an old man and a youth, embarking on a journey to deliver a corpse of an anonymous man who was unjustly killed. The corpse-bearers are all poor peasants who had set out to seek work at a marshland where summer crops are being harvested. No one knows who the dead man was or how he died, although the corpse is the central character of the play around which the plot is woven. As the living trio travel with the dead through rural landscape, each small detail emerges with compelling clarity, melting in phantasmal memories and fantasies of the three, engulfing them with a touch of the uncanny. The body decomposes, rots, stink-eyes bulge out, ants attack the flesh - yet the three cannot find the address of the deceased. Villagers at the given address refuse to acknowledge it and redirect him to another village. Thus driven away from all human destinations, the driver and his two companions bury the dead on a dry riverbed, with deep love.
Though Selim Al Deen started writing the play against the backdrop of contemporary political scenario of 1990, it touches the timeless Islamic and Santal myths at the end. For this reason, director Sudip Chakroborthy, along with the cast and crew of “Chaka” attended classes at the Department of Islamic History and Culture of DU and went to Kakonhaat of Godagari, Rajshahi to get themselves acquainted with the music, dance, lifestyle and indigenous culture of Santal community for the production. They also took help from the Department of Drama and Dramatics of Jahangirnagar University where Al Deen would teach.
Local pat, depicted by Raghunath Chakrabarty, has been used for the production. Dry leaves signifying the cold state of death, will be placed round the stage. Apart from direction, Sudip Chakroborthy, an Assistant Professor at the Department of Theatre of DU, has also designed set and light for the production.
“As the play narrative in style, I have followed circular stage pattern that our oriental philosophy suggests. The circular stage has a similarity with the womb, the solar system, the sun, the moon, rotation of time, lifecycle and especially “Chaka” or the wheel. Only the Masters and First year students will perform in the play, signifying the cycle of theatre activists beginning and ending their academic journey,” says Sudip Chakroborthy.
Associate Professor Wahida Mollick Jolly of the same department has designed costume while Nila Saha has done music for the play. Masters (final semester) students -- Syeda Ifat Ara, Laboni Akter, Mahedi Tanjir, Sushanta Kumar Sarkar, Nusrat Sarmin, Mahjabin Islam and Khan Md. Rafiqul Islam -- on stage will perform in Chaka while several first years' students will perform chorus offstage.
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