Playwright: Manoj Mitra,Director: Uma Jhunjhunwala,Group: Little Thespian, West Bengal
Language: HindimDuration: 2 hrs 10 mins
The Group
‘Little Thespian,’ the brain child of husband wife duo Uma Jhunjhunwala and SM. Azhar Alam, is one of the leading Hindi theatre groups of West Bengal and is committed to work for the cause of theatre. It offers people intellectually stimulating and socially relevant plays mounted with artistic skill and professionalism. Over the years with productions like Alka, Gainda, Patjhad, Shuturmurgh, Lohar, Hayavadana etc., it has begun to break barriers and create a great emotional rendezvous between theatre, actors and audiences. It believes that theatre should be a thought-provoking, entertaining art which brings to the forefront the vices of society, forcing people to think up solutions to the problems and solving them according to their needs and circumstances without passing judgments. Apart from mainstream theatre, Thespian has three separate wings - Katha Manch, which deals with presentations of stories on stage without dramatization; Galyara Manch, which presents plays in the open; and Natkhat Manch, which deals with children's theatre.
The Play
Alka is a social play which throws light on different aspects of life. On one hand it shows the worries of Alka, the mother, and on the other hand there is Mansi, her docile daughter who having once being a victim of domestic violence due to dowry, rises like a phoenix and tries to bring her perpetrators to justice. Then there is the modern menace of ragging, which is shown through Shubho, Alka's son, who loses his mental equilibrium and ends up in an asylum; and the difficulties faced by divorced women are depicted by the character Devahuti. Through the character Joydeep, the idea of rejection by publishers and deciding on a written piece of work’s worth is also addressed. Jadhupati shows the gradual mental disintegration of today's youth. Mitra becomes philosophic through Rajninath, Alka's husband. Alka is the centre of the play around who different characters revolve and whatever happens in the life of those characters is conveyed through her.
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