Monday,11,2019
Anjan Biswas is a radio and jatra artist.
Who wrote The Merchant of Venice pala?
It was written by Asit Bandopadhyay, but I am not really in touch with him. He would be a better person to talk to regarding the production.
If you could say something about the production?
The Merchant of Venice pala was called Manush Pishaach. If I am not wrong it was in 1987-1988 season. It is important to remember that jatra is a very feudal system. There is a hierarchy amidst the artists and the crews. Even the seats during rehearsals are according to this hierarchy. The first seat belongs to the artist whose name sells the most tickets. Only Utpal-babu (Dutt) went into the world of jatras and tried to undo this. Asit Bandopadhyay could not really do away with this feudal setup.
Asit-da is from a theatre background. He used to be a part of the original Nandikar group. But I think later on Asit Bandopadhyay and Ajitesh Bandopadhyay fell out because of some personal matter and Asit-da left the group. Then he started writing jatra palas and they were hits. These jatras were not open in all the directions. Rather they were walled on one side. Personally, I felt that after a point these jatras are an auditory medium. People who sit at the very back can barely make out the actors in the front. They only hear the lines to make sense of what is happening. In the old tradition of jatra, when it happened the whole night long, people would go to hear the jatra as there would be a lot of songs in the palas. Then, it became four hour long jatras. When I became an assistant director to Asit-da in the 80s, I found them to be about two and a half hours long. Asit-da did doing about ten palas in a year. The world of jatras is even more professional than, say, the film world. If the call time was at 8, then irrespective of any natural calamity, everyone had to be there. I have seen this myself.
Shibdas Mukherjee played the role of Shylock, whose character was adapted to Sheikh Shylock Mohammad, a Muslim. After this, Antonio became Anantadeb, Bassanio Basantasen, and Portia became Purnima. But since Shibdas Mukherjee would be playing Shylock and he was the most senior actor, he would have to be the hero of the play. But then, how would Shylock lose at the famous trial? We devised it in such a way that Shylock himself, on his wife’s insistence, goes to Purnima in disguise and says this is how one can win the argument in court. I also remember that Venice was called Bilashghar.
Shylock was also given a wife, since he becomes the protagonist in the play and thus needs a female lead. So there was this scene where his wife is giving him her ornaments to sell and finance his business. And he is upset, so he promises to bring it back one day and promises to extract his vengeance on Antonio and Bassanio. So once, when we were preparing for performance, I had held on to Shibdas-babu’s hands to show him how to do the scene. We normally do this in theatre, so I had done it there as well. But this is not commonly done, especially to senior artists in jatras. Shibdas-babu was very serious, and he calmly told me to tell him if I did not like what he was doing instead of showing it to him. Of course, later I found him to be very warm as a person.
This jatra became a huge hit. I have seen the audience explode in applause when Shylock delivered his long speeches. It is seen that if a jatra gets success with the Nayeks (people who come to book a jatra) in Medinipore, then it becomes a ‘ hit’ all over Bengal. I have seen this to be true. I went to see a production of Manush Pishaach in Mecheda, where I saw the audience in frenzied appreciation of Shylock’s dialogues. It was basically a one man show. The other actors were not less qualified, but they were not as famous.
Is the text available for this jatra?
I am not sure. Asit-da would know.
Who brought Shakespeare to the world of jatra for the first time?
Shyamal Ghosh adapted Hamlet into a jatra. This was in the early 70s. Lalita Chatterjee and Shyamal Ghosh had acted in the production.
What was this group called?
I think it was LokoNatyo.
What was the use of music like in this production?
Shib Babu never sang in the jatra, but there was music for sure. There was a romantic angle in the Bassanio-Portia story, and they sang songs while holding hands. Shylock’s wife may have had a sad song.
Who wrote the songs?
A certain Mr. Shil but I don’t really remember.
What about the costume?
The costume was a very important part of the production. It was not particularly historically accurate. But it had to be larger than life, like the character that Shib-babu portrayed. Antonio and Bassanio were from the business class, so they were given bright clothes. Shylock was given something like a long coat which was black in colour.
How did the play end?
It ends with Antonio surviving, but only because Shylock himself has told Portia how to defeat Shylock. This happens in the court scene. In the very end, there is a scene where Shylock and his wife are talking and Shylock is telling her that he has kept his word to her. The wife had said he must not become like Antonio. There was a line which went something like ‘Tumi toh eitai cheyechhile.’ (‘This is what you had wanted.’)
Did Shylock have any children in the production?
No, not from what I can recall. Shylock was shown to be a younger man here. The loss suffered by his business was the centre of his story.
While promoting the play, was there any mention of Shakespeare?
It must have been there in the pamphlets. Why else would he use the name Shylock? He could have used any other name. I am sure he wanted people to see the similarities.
I don’t really remember what they said in the papers, but I know Asit-da wanted Shakespeare’s name to be there. A large section of the audience might not recognize who he was, but there is also a section who recognize Shakespeare, and who might even come to see the jatra because it is inspired by Shakespeare.
How long did the jatra play?
For one season because the actors could join a different jatra in the next season. It followed the Bengali calender and went on for one year, during which it travelled around Bengal.
Why do you think there weren’t many Shakespeare productions in the rural Bengal?
You could say there weren’t any productions of Shakespeare in Bengal. Five act plays had no takers among the rural audience. It was instead a trend to have one act plays. Yes, when Asit Basu did Kolkatar Hamlet, they did shorter versions of that. But they did not do Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I think there is also a political reason for this. The political climate of the 70s is, I believe, responsible for this. After the Naxalite movement waned, ex-Naxalites went on to do plays. I think they liked the thrill associated with this profession. They started organizing cultural competitions, which were slightly left-oriented. Around this time, these new plays came up which were a little aggressive. They were also perfect one act plays. This led to the popularity of one-act plays.
One approach to Shakespeare is that he wrote bourgeois plays. So Shakespeare did not come to group theatre all that much either.
Yes, the plays at that time were preoccupied with contemporary issues. Shakespeare did not become all that popular. For example, Nandikar is always interested in doing foreign playwrights, but if you notice they never perform Shakespeare. After Utpal-babu, now they are doing more of Shakespeare. But in between, the trend never caught up.
Has Shakespeare become popular in the jatra world now?
No, it hasn’t.
When you visited the Drama Department at Rabindra Bharati University, how was Shakespeare being taught there?
We would discuss it but Shakespeare wasn’t really taught to us. Instead, we focused on Rabindranath a lot. We did departmental productions which we performed outside as well, but also had to perform it for examination purposes.
Have you ever done any Shakespeare for the radio?
Interestingly I cannot recall doing any Shakespearean play though it would be very much feasible. I have done Pushkin, Ibsen and Chekhov, but no Shakespeare.