Curtain comes down on Satabdira Kalakar’s five-day long 23rd National Multilingual Drama Festival

Bhubaneswar: Curtain came down on 23rd Kalinga Natya Mahotsav (National Multilingual Drama Festival), in which five plays of different languages and flavours were staged at Rabindra Mandap here from February 21 to 25.
On the concluding evening, Assamese play ‘Ghatatkoch Putra Mor’ was staged by Purba Ranga theatre troupe from Guwahati to a packed audience.
Gunakar Dev Goswami did justice to both of his roles- the director and actor. He played the eponymous character Ghatatkoch to the hilt.
Written by Mrinmoy Bhuyan, the play is an adaptation of a subplot of the epic Mahabharata.
Ghatatkoch is the son of Bheem and demoness Hidimbi. Due to some reasons, Bheem abandons his wife and son. Being a half-demon, Ghatatkoch enjoys some magical powers like he can fly, increase and decrease his size and can become invisible and so can go anywhere without being noticed by others. He plays a crucial role on the fourteenth day of the Kurukshetra war taking Pandav’s side and causing extensive damage to the Kauravas’ army.
What the play wants to show is the sacrifice of Hidimbi and Ghatatkoch and the troupe was successful in that. There were some flaws, but the direction, the choice of artistes and their performances made up for them.
The theatre connoisseurs enjoyed the play till the last scene.
On this occasion, noted NSDian Dolagovind Rath was conferred with Pramila Prativa Samman. Actress Bhaswati Basu, journalist Samiksha Patnaik and photo journalist Bikash Nayak were also felicitated.
This year the festival witnessed a Hindi play (Gagan Ghata Gahrani by Kala Manch, Patna, Bihar), an Odia play (Eka Jidkhor Jhia’ by host Satabdira Kalakar, Bhubaneswar), a Bengali play (Sappho Chitrangada by Dum Dum Sabdomugdho Natya Kendra, Kolkata), a Telugu play (Madhuparkaalu by Aravinda Arts Development Society, Vijayawada) and the Assamese play mentioned above.
By kalasanskruti.