Bhubaneswar: The play ‘Sesha Sakhyata’ (last meet) quintessentially celebrates a kind of eternal love between a couple.
The play was directed by Prof Dr Gouranga Rout and was borrowed from noted playwright Gopal Chhotray’s ‘Seema’, which was aired on the occasion of Cuttack All India Radio’s (Akashvani) radio drama festival in 2016.
It was staged on the third evening (March 13) of five-day-long Kalinga Natya Mahotsav (National Multilingual Drama Festival) organised by Satabdira Kalakar, one of the premier and oldest theatre groups in the state, started on March 11 at Rabindra Mandap in Bhubaneswar.
The play opens onto the drawing room of Bikash Mohapatra, an industrialist. He with a tired look on his face, along with his secretary, enters the room and plonks into a chair. Then, his domestic help asks him to eat something. He says he would first go to hospital to see Seema.
As the play proceeds, how Bikash and Seema love each other was displayed brilliantly.
The climax scene was the tour de force of the play.
After her discharge from hospital, Seema comes to Bikash’s residence and tells Bikash that she needs a shower. She goes to the bathroom.
Just then Bikash’s parents arrive from the village. They have been reluctant to accept Seema, who is an orphan brought up in an orphanage, as their daughter-in-law. When they come to know that Seema is already in Bikash’s house and the latter keeps it secret from them, they get angry and leave Bikash’s house for their village.
Back in the house, Bikash keeps waiting for Seema to come out of the bathroom. When she doesn’t come even after the normal time, he calls her but there is no answer. A sinking feeling runs down his spine. He runs towards the bathroom and opens the door only to find there is none in the bathroom. And, there is no sign of someone having been bathed. He searches for her frantically everywhere but can’t find her.
Just then Dr Nishikant enters the room with Seema’s dead body lying on a stretcher. He informs Bikash that while undergoing treatment she had breathed her last at 11am.
Bikash stands rooted to the ground with looking vacantly at the lifeless body of Seema.
He understands that Seema visits him in her subtle body to see him for the last time, for a last meet.
Dr Sameeta Mohanty and Nilkantha Parida did their best to give justice to their respective characters Seema and Bikash. Worth mentioning, it was the same Dr Mohanty who played Seema’s character in the 2016 Akashvani play. All the other artistes including Prakash Maharana, Bibhu Mohapatra, Chhabi Sethi, Dillip Beura and Charuchandra Mohanty were equally good in portraying their respective characters.
Prof Dr Gouranga Rout was also seen in Bikash’s domestic help role.
The theatre lovers had an engrossing viewing experience.
