Bhubaneswar: The 13th Ajit Natya Mahotsav, started at Rabindra Mandap here on January 21, came to an end on January 23.
The concluding evening witnessed the lighting the auspicious lamp by the guests like veteran theatre director E Prasanna and Vice Chancellor of Utkal University of Culture Prof Prasanna Kumar Swain, followed by the felicitation ceremony. While Bidyut Prabha Pattanayak was felicitated with Ajit Natya Samman, journalist Madhabananda Beura received Ajit Sambadika Samman.
The play of the concluding evening was ‘Bitarkita Aparahna’, staged by CANMASS, a Paradip based theatre group founded by Sriman Narayan Mishra and is one of the premier theatre groups of the state.
The 80-minute-long play revolves around a family, showing three generations-grandfather, his son and his grandson- and the degeneration of principles in the family.
The stage lights up to show Neelaratan (Parshuram Nayak) sitting alone in a room of his son’s residence in a certain city. Then, Chandramohan (Kedarnath Biswal), his childhood friend, who lives in the same city, enters his room. The discussion between the two friends let the audience know that Neelaratan is a retired officer, a man of principle who steered clear of corruption during his service period. With his life’s savings, he has got a gold idol of lord Krishna built and has come to his son’s house to get some money from his son to build a temple in his village.
During his stay, Neelaratan comes to know that his son Sukumar (Sriman Narayan Mishra), a class one officer, is accumulating wealth through unfair means, his daughter-in-law Saswati (Jayashree Mishra), a job holder, is a spendthrift and his grandson Bulbul (Sukanta Mirdha) has gone ashtray. He bunks college classes to roam with his girlfriend Leena (Debalaxmi Swain) and splash his father’s ill-gotten money on her.
To his utter dismay, one day Neelaratan finds that the golden idol has been stolen from his bag. In fact, Bulbul steals it and sells it to go on a trip with Leena.Neelaratan is left with no option but to return his village while his life-long dream to build a temple for Lord Krishna remains in dream.
All the actors tried to give their best performances while Sukanta Mirdha, who played the character of Bulbul, was excellent in portraying his character, adding some laughters to the seriousness of the play and leaving the audience wanting more of him.
The director of the play, Sriman Narayan Mishra, who is the founder and secretary of CANMASS, nicely presented the play, written by Manoranjan Das. Though written in 1980s, the story has relevance in present time.
The director’s way of telling the story in layers was fascinating. The use of non-realistic diagrammatic structure as stage craft improved the appeal of the play. Sanjay Saha’s light design, Sangeet S Pattanayak’ music and Manoj Sutra’s music execution made a huge difference to the successful staging of the play.
Notably, CANMASS has been organising ‘CANFEST’, a National Theatre Festival at Paradip since 2004.
