Monday,11,2019

Bibhash Chakraborty is a Bengali theatre personality.

Interviewed by Dr. Paromita Chakravarti and Sri Arunava Banerjee.

How did the idea for Hamlet come to you?

Everyone in theatre wants to do the famous Shakespearean plays. But first one has to see if one is ready for it, if one’s group is ready for it. But I thought, since my career is nearing its end, why not go ahead and do a Shakespeare play and fulfil my wish. Of all the Shakespeare plays that I have read and seen, I have been drawn to Hamlet the most. And it is a singularly difficult Shakespeare play since it doesn’t have sub-plots. I also liked Macbeth. When I was younger, I had seen productions of both plays as well as film versions as those by Olivier, Polanski, Kurosawa etc.

How did you first come across Shakespeare?

When I was young, I had read Lamb’s Tales. It was not a prescribed text, but I read it on my own. Back then, I did not really understand Shakespeare so well, but I understood there was more to the plays than the story itself. As for instance the philosophy behind his plays, its characters, the relationship between these characters, the world of his plays etc. I think that is where I first got attracted to Shakespeare. In college, I had English as a Pass course, which probably had Shakespeare in it as well.

About the Hamlet production.

I had first decided to do Hamlet in 2003. I got a grant as well, but that did not work out. In my notes for the play, I had specified that I wanted to set the play in a pub. I got this idea from the productions that I had seen at Stratford in Canada. There is a Hamlet Inn there. I thought how easily these people mixed their own lives with the Bard’s plays. So I began to think that I might as well set the play in an inn.

The other consideration that was there was a financial one. How would I have the kind of funds that one needed to build a set for a Shakespearean play? We were limited by the lack of money. If I was to set it in an inn, it gave me the liberty to come out of the sets Shakespeare imagined and design the locations in whichever way I liked it. However, I have tried to tamper with the text as little as possible.

I had initially taken Shamshur Rahman’s translation of the text, but then I saw that I’d have to make so many changes that it could lead to problems. I have friends in Bangladeshi theatre, who might have taken offense to the changes I would be making. Rahman’s text seemed too much like poetry.

After this, I went on to use Shakti Biswas’ translation of the play. Since this was a relatively lesser known translation, I could make changes to it and edit it as I liked. For example, in my play, I chose to focus on Hamlet’s story and not the larger political context. Dipendu Chakrabarti has recently spoken about how I had left out Fortinbras from the play. The political reference, I felt, was not relevant for my audience. So the political aspect comes in at the beginning and at the end.

A lot of people objected directly to saying ‘beshyalay’ (brothel) instead of ‘nunnery’, but I felt it was necessary to do this in Bengali because the audience needs to understand what the English term really meant. It is important to explain what a certain word was meant to convey when it came to Shakespeare’s dialogues. One has to remember always that one is putting up a stage for the contemporary audience. Yes, the text is a classic, but you cannot let that dictate how your production will be.

Do you encourage your actors to read the original play?

No, I don’t. We are not trained to read Shakespeare. Even I don’t look back at the original text once I have an edited text in my hands.

Was this your first Shakespeare play?

Yes. Where would I find another Shakespeare play, even to act in it? I remember Suman had done a fantastic production of Coriolanus when he was younger. Raja Lear is not his first.

Which productions of Shakespeare have you seen?

I have seen Utpal Dutt’s Macbeth, but I have felt that it is just presenting Shakespeare. There was nothing original in it, aside from what Shakespeare himself had done. It was a copybook British production.

Contributing something original to the play is very important to me. For example, I tried to connect my play with the contemporary situation despite retaining the timeless aspect of the play, like its treatment of jealousy, sexuality etc. The genius of Shakespeare lies in the fact that he has not left any theme untouched.

When I first saw the play I thought there was a hint of the Naxalite past.

Be it Naxalites in the past, be it Mao-badis in the present day, it is a tribute to anyone who picks up arms because they are unhappy with social conditions. This is, I believe, very relevant to present times.

Was the first part with the narrator your own?

Yes, I wrote that. I contextualized it in a pub in Park Street. Hamlet’s friend, who had run away from the encounter that happened at this pub, is recalling the events that had unfolded there.

Why do you think there are so many Shakespeare productions right now?

Kaushik came to see the premier of my play. He really liked it. So did Suman. But they were both dissatisfied that the contemporary reference in the beginning did not really come back anywhere else in the play. Maybe they wanted to do Shakespeare adaptations of their own as well. One of the great things about Shakespeare is that you can do it even with the limited resources of group theatre in Bengal.

We felt that your actors were a little old in comparison to Shakespeare’s play.

These things don’t matter in the theatre. Look at Shambhu Mitra or Shishir-babu’s work. Stanislavsky had said that the age that an actor needs to be in order to be mature enough to play Hamlet necessarily means that he would have to be older than the character of Hamlet.

Your Hamlet runs around a lot in stage. Was that supposed to indicate his youth?

No, I hadn’t planned that.

Did you intend to make the costume a little caricature-ish?

Not at all. If anything I wanted it to be contemporary. They are in jeans and leather jackets.

What would you say was the one thing that you hinged your play on?

The trail of blood Hamlet leaves in his wake.

How did you approach the graveyard scene?

It is difficult, given that it is set in a pub. So I altered the set. The chairs were put up on the table to establish a change in location. And that is where I did the gravedigger scene.

The setting in the pub made it easy for people to interact, but they also sip their drinks when the scene demands as much.

When did you come into theatre?

This is impossible to say. I would say it was in my blood. My family has been very heavily involved with the cultural milieu in Sylhet. I was naturally drawn to theatre. I cannot pinpoint a date. But I suppose I got to think about theatre seriously after joining Presidency College. That period, between 1953 and 1957, is when you could say I became seriously involved with theatre.