Monday 30 November 2015
Thursday 26 November 2015
'সায়ক' নাট্যদলের ৪২ তম বর্ষপূর্তি উৎসব
আগামী ২৯ নভেম্বর, ২০১৫ থেকে শুরু হতে চলেছে 'সায়ক' নাট্যদলের ৪২ তম বর্ষপূর্তি উৎসব। চারদিনব্যপী এই নাট্য উৎসবে প্রদর্শিত হবে চারটি নাটক, যথাক্রমে : 'দামিনী হে', 'নটী বিনোদিনী', 'চলচিত্ত চঞ্চরী' এবং 'দায়বদ্ধ'।
Happy Birthday: Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco was a Romanian playwright who wrote mostly in French, and one of the foremost figures of the French Avant-garde theatre. Beyond ridiculing the most banal situations, Ionesco's plays depict the solitude and insignificance of human existence in a tangible way.Though best known as a playwright, but plays were not his first chosen medium. He started writing poetry and criticism.Ionesco began his theatre career late; he did not write his first play until 1948.He translated a play, 'La Cantatrice Chauve', which was performed for the first time in 1950 under the direction of Nicolas Bataille. It was far from a success and went unnoticed until a few established writers and critics, among them Jean Anouilh and Raymond Queneau, championed the play.Ionesco's earliest works, and his most innovative, were all one-act nonsense plays or extended sketches: 'La Cantatrice Chauve translated as 'The Bald Soprano' or 'The Bald Prima Donna' (written 1948), 'Jacques ou la soumissio'n translated as 'Jack', or 'The Submission' (1950), 'La Leçon' translated as 'The Lesson' (1950), 'Les Salutions' translated as 'Salutations' (1950), 'Les Chaises' translated as 'The Chairs' (1952), 'L'Avenir est dans les oeufs' translated as 'The Future is in Eggs' (1951), 'Victimes du Devoir' translated as' Victims of Duty' (1952) and, finally, 'Le Nouveau Locataire' translated as 'The New Tenant' (1953).With 'Tueur sans gages' translated as The Killer Ionesco began to explore more sustained dramatic situations featuring more humanized characters. Notably this includes 'Bérenger', a central character in a number of Ionesco's plays, the last of which is 'Le Piéton de l'air' translated as 'A Stroll in the Air'. Ionesco's later work has generally received less attention. This includes 'La Soif et la faim' translated as Hunger and Thirst' (1966), 'Jeux de massacre' (1971), 'Macbett' (1972, a free adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth) and 'Ce formidable bordel' (1973).
Ionesco also wrote his only novel, 'The Hermit', during this later period. It was first published in 1975. A part from the libretto for the opera 'Maximilien Kolbe' (music by Dominique Probst) which has been performed in five countries, filmed for television and recorded for release on CD, Ionesco did not write for the stage after 'Voyage chez les morts' in 1981. However, 'La Cantatrice chauve' is still playing at the 'Théâtre de la Huchette' today, having moved there in 1952. Ionesco also contributed to the theatre with his theoretical writings (Wellwarth, 33).In the first section, titled "Experience of the Theatre", Ionesco claimed to have hated going to the theatre as a child because it gave him "no pleasure or feeling of participation" . He wrote that the problem with realistic theatre is that it is less interesting than theatre that invokes an "imaginative truth", which he found to be much more interesting and freeing than the "narrow" truth presented by strict realism . He claimed that "drama that relies on simple effects is not necessarily drama simplified". Ionesco is often considered a writer of the Theatre of the Absurd. This is a label originally given to him by Martin Esslin in his book of the same name, placing Ionesco alongside such contemporary writers as Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, and Arthur Adamov. In Present Past, Past Present, Ionesco wrote, "Breton taught us to destroy the walls of the real that separate us from reality, to participate in being so as to live as if it were the first day of creation, a day that would every day be the first day of new creations."Friday 20 November 2015
Paying Our Homage to Veteran Stage Actress Kozhikode Santha Devi
Damayanthi better known by her stage name Kozhikode Santha Devi, was an Indian Malayalam film and stage actress. In a career spanning about sixty years, she acted in more than 1000 plays including ‘Kudukkukal’, ‘Smaarakam’, ‘Deepasthambham Mahaascharyam’, ‘Inquilaaabinte Makkal’, ‘Ithu Bhoomiyaannu’ etc.
She made her debut as an actress through a 1954 drama ‘Smarakam’ written by Vasu Pradeep and directed by Kundanari Appu Nair. She has received the” Kerala State award” for best Stage actress in 1968 for her role in ‘Kudukkukal’ and for Best Actress in State plays in 1983 for ‘Deepasthambham Mahashcharyam’. In 2005 she was awarded with the lifetime achievement award from” Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi”. Santha Devi died on 20 November 2010 evening in a private hospital in Kozhikode. We pay our homage to this veteran stage actress on her 5th death anniversary.
Thursday 19 November 2015
Thursday 12 November 2015
Monday 9 November 2015
Friday 6 November 2015
Thursday 5 November 2015
Happy Birth: VIVIEN LEIGH
Vivian Mary Hartley, later known as Vivien, was an English stage and film actress.
At the age of three, young Vivian made her first stage appearance for her mother's amateur theatre group, reciting "Little Bo Peep". Gertrude Hartley tried to instil an appreciation of literature in her daughter and introduced her to the works of Hans Christian Andersen, Lewis Carroll and Rudyard Kipling, as well as stories of ‘Greek mythology’ and ‘Indian folklore’.
Vivian met Herbert Leigh Holman in Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London, known as Leigh Holman, a barrister 13 years her senior, in 1931. Despite his disapproval of "theatrical people", they married on 20 December 1932, and she terminated her studies at RADA; her attendance and interest in acting having already waned after meeting Holman. In 1935 She was cast in the play ‘The Mask of Virtue’, directed by Sidney Carroll and received excellent reviews, followed by interviews and newspaper articles. One such article was from the ‘Daily Express’, in which the interviewer noted "a lightning change came over her face", which was the first public mention of the rapid changes in mood which had become characteristic of her. John Betjeman, the future Poet Laureate, described her as "the essence of English girlhood". Korda attended her opening night performance, admitted his error, and signed her to a film contract. She continued with the play; but, when Korda moved it to a larger theatre, Leigh was found to be unable to project her voice adequately or to hold the attention of so large an audience, and the play closed soon after. In the playbill, Carroll had revised the spelling of her first name to "Vivien".
Leigh was strongly identified with her second husband Laurence Olivier. Laurence Olivier saw Leigh in ‘ Mask of Virtue’, and after he congratulated her on her performance, a friendship developed. Olivier and Leigh began an affair while acting as lovers in ‘Fire Over England’ (1937), Despite her relative inexperience, Leigh was chosen to play ‘Ophelia’ to Olivier's ‘Hamlet’ in an ‘Old Vic Theatre’ production staged at ‘Elsinore’, Denmark. On 31 August 1940, Olivier and Leigh were married at the San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara, California.
The Oliviers mounted a stage production of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ for Broadway. The New York press publicised the adulterous nature of the beginning of Olivier and Leigh's relationship and questioned their ethics in not returning to the UK to help with the war effort.
The Oliviers mounted a stage production of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ for Broadway. The New York press publicised the adulterous nature of the beginning of Olivier and Leigh's relationship and questioned their ethics in not returning to the UK to help with the war effort.
By 1948 Olivier was on the board of directors for the ‘Old Vic Theatre’, and he and Leigh embarked on a six-month tour of Australia and New Zealand to raise funds for the theatre. Olivier played the lead in ‘Richard III’ and also performed with Leigh in ‘The School for Scandal’ and The ‘Skin of Our Teeth’. The success of the tour encouraged the Oliviers to make their first ‘West End’ appearance together, performing the same works with one addition, ‘Antigone’, included at Leigh's insistence because she wished to play a role in a ‘tragedy’.
Leigh next sought the role of ‘Blanche DuBois’ in the ‘West End’ stage production of Tennessee Williams's ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ and was cast after Williams and the play's producer Irene Mayer Selznick saw her in ‘The School for Scandal’ and ‘Antigone’; Olivier was contracted to direct. Containing a rape scene and references to promiscuity and homosexuality, the play was destined to be controversial, and the media discussion about its suitability added to Leigh's anxiety. Nevertheless, she believed strongly in the importance of the work.
When the West End production of ‘Streetcar’ opened in October 1949, J. B. Priestley denounced the play and Leigh's performance; and the critic Kenneth Tynan, who was to make a habit of dismissing her stage performances, commented that Leigh was badly miscast because British actors were "too well-bred to emote effectively on stage". Olivier and Leigh were chagrined that part of the commercial success of the play lay in audience members attending to see what they believed would be a salacious story, rather than the ‘Greek tragedy’ that they envisioned. The play also had strong supporters, among them Noël Coward, who described Leigh as "magnificent".
In 1951 Leigh and Olivier performed two plays about ‘Cleopatra’, William Shakespeare's ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ and George Bernard Shaw's ‘Caesar and Cleopatra’, alternating the play each night and winning good reviews. They took the productions to New York, where they performed a season at the ‘Ziegfeld Theatre’ into 1952. The reviews there were also mostly positive, but the critic Kenneth Tynan angered them when he suggested that Leigh's was a mediocre talent that forced Olivier to compromise his own.
In 1953 Leigh recovered sufficiently to play ‘The Sleeping Prince’ with Olivier; and, in 1955, they performed a season at ‘Stratford-upon-Avon’ in Shakespeare's ‘Twelfth Night,Macbeth’, and ‘Titus Andronicus’. They played to capacity houses and attracted generally good reviews.
In 1956 Leigh took the lead role in the Noël Coward play ‘South Sea Bubble’, but became pregnant and withdrew from the production.
In 1958 considering her marriage to be over, Leigh began a relationship with the actor Jack Merivale. Merivale joined her for a tour of Australia, New Zealand and Latin America that lasted from July 1961 until May 1962, and Leigh enjoyed positive reviews without sharing the spotlight with Olivier. Though she was still beset by bouts of depression, she continued to work in the theatre and, in 1963, won a ‘Tony Award’ for Best Actress in a Musical for her role in ‘Tovarich’.
In May 1967 Leigh was rehearsing to appear with Michael Redgrave in Edward Albee's ‘A Delicate Balance’ when her tuberculosis recurred. On the night of 7 July 1967 Merivale left her as usual at their Eaton Square flat, to perform in a play, returned home discovered her body on the floor. On the public announcement of her death on 8 July, the lights of every theatre in central London were extinguished for an hour.
Wednesday 4 November 2015
Tuesday 3 November 2015
Monday 2 November 2015
পৃথ্বীরাজ কাপুর -এর জন্মদিনে আমাদের সশ্রদ্ধ প্রণাম
পৃথ্বীরাজ কাপুর..নাট্যব্যক্তিত্ব
সম্রাট আকবর কি এরকমই দেখতে ছিলেন ? এই প্রশ্ন আজও তাড়া করে দর্শকদের। চলচ্চিত্রের পর্দায় তাঁর সদম্ভ উপস্থিতি ইতিহাসের আকবরকে রুপোলী দুনিয়ায় ধরে রেখে দিয়েছে।
আর মঞ্চের পর্দা ?
সেখানেও যে আরও সপ্রতিভ কাপুর সাহেব। পৃথ্বী থিয়েটারও তাঁরই সঙ্গে সঙ্গে ঐতিহাসিক হয়ে গিয়েছে।
পৃথ্বীরাজ কাপুর..নাট্যব্যক্তিত্ব।
গমগমে স্বরে মঞ্চ যেন দুলে উঠত। মুগ্ধ হতেন দর্শকরা।
নাটকের প্রথম অঙ্কের শুরু লয়ালপুরে। অবিভক্ত ভারতের পেশাওয়ারের লয়ালপুরে ১৯২৮ সালে প্রথম মঞ্চ অভিনয়টি করেন পৃথ্বীরাজ কাপুর।
তারপর...নীল সাগরের পারে..আরব সাগরের ধারে বোম্বাই....মঞ্চের পুঁজি সম্বল করেই বিশাল চেহারার মানুষটি ভরাট গলায় দর্শকদের আপন করে নিলেন। রূপোলী জগৎ মাতল রাজা পৃথ্বীরাজের অভিনয় কৌশলে।
তারপর...নীল সাগরের পারে..আরব সাগরের ধারে বোম্বাই....মঞ্চের পুঁজি সম্বল করেই বিশাল চেহারার মানুষটি ভরাট গলায় দর্শকদের আপন করে নিলেন। রূপোলী জগৎ মাতল রাজা পৃথ্বীরাজের অভিনয় কৌশলে।
এক দুর্দান্ত অভিনয় জীবন। রঙ্গমঞ্চের পর্দা ঘেরা আলোআঁধারি থেকে ক্যামেরার সামনে ও পিছনে, সবেতেই সফল এমন একজন ছিলেন যাঁর কাঁধে ভর রেখেছে বলিউড।
অভিনেতা পৃথ্বীরাজ কাপুর আর তাঁর পৃথ্বী থিয়েটার গবেষণার অমূল্য উপকরণ হয়ে রয়ে গিয়েছে।
মহান অভিনেতার প্রয়াণ হয় ১৯৭২ সালের ২৯ মে।
Happy Birthday: Sha Rukh Khan
Shah Rukh
Khan :
Very few known that ‘King Khan’ staged theater for a long time during his Delhi days. During masters in mass communications Khan went on to study theatre under the reputed Mr. Barry John whom he credits for carving out the actor inside him but his mentor considers his pupil as being solely responsible for his greatness. Manoj Bajpai, another popular Bollywood actor who graduated to cinema from theater, was his batch mate at Barry John’s theater learning academy in Delhi.
His father used to run the NSD mess (located opposite Modern School) during Nadira Babbar's time. He ran restaurants, but he would spend most of his time there and not at his other restaurants. Khan studied at St. Columbus and went there and wait for his sister. His entire childhood was spent there in the laps and roaming around with arguably India's finest actors. According to Khan, he used to call Raj Babbar, Babbar sher uncle as he used to teach Khan some of the greatest plays, be it ‘Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda’, ‘Razia Sultana’ or ‘Tughlaq’. Shahrukh wanting to be an actor growing up watching those actors, be it Rohini Hattangadi along with many others, they have taught Khan how to act. Anupam Kher used to come there, Naseeruddin Shah used to teach at Modern School and Sharukh have watched all their plays and rehearsals for months. Raghubir Yadav who was the junior most then, singing the Ganpati puja during rehearsals. According to Mr. Khan, theatre taught him voice and body control and patience, but besides that, it taught him the fact that rehearsals have to be so rehearsed that they look natural.
He said in an interview, --“People feel that I perform effortlessly and deliver my lines with so much ease, but learning your lines are basic things that theatre teaches you. Besides, doing theatre you can sense that you have done it right as a live audience teaches you that. And the most beautiful part of being an actor is that you can be seen by thousands of people, but you can't see the thousands from the stage. You are quiet on stage. And yet everybody is looking at you. To be able to be looked at and called upon to perform and to be able to do so. Theatre teaches you that. That is why you will sometimes find some of the best actors uncomfortable with performing live, but anyone who has done theatre will not be uncomfortable. It lets you be the person who is stared at and yet not feel conscious. It makes you invisible to the stares. A lot of my understanding of acting and being able to do what I am able to prolifically on stage or in front of the camera comes from nine years of solid theatre training. And not just in acting, but in all aspects of it, be it makeup, lighting, being able to send junior artistes on stage, cueing, props, costumes, everyone had to do everything. I realised that making of an actor is not due to acting. Making of an actor is due to the peripherals. So I have a lot of respect for all aspects and for the entire team. Theatre teaches you to be in a group and it teaches you to move in a group. So, in any film that I have worked in, they will tell you that everyone had so much fun as it has always been a team effort. Theatre has helped me to create that atmosphere in each and every film where I have been the lead actor. I always create an atmosphere of theatre on every film that I have worked with.”
We wish this famous actor and theatre person a very happy birthday on his 50th birthday.
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