Satabdira Kalakar’s workshop students stage ‘Bapa’ in Bhubaneswar

Kalasanskruti

Bhubaneswar: The theatre lovers in Bhubaneswar city had an engrossing viewing experience while watching a family drama ‘Bapa’(father) at the auditorium of Satabdira Kalakar.

The play, written by Dhirendra Nath Mallick, popularly known as Dhira Mallick, and directed by Santosh Mohanty, was staged by the 32nd batch students of Satabdira Kalakar School of Acting.

The impact of the play was so intense that the theatre aficionados remained glued to their seats till the last scene of the play, by extension till the curtain call.

After the lighting the lamp ceremony attended by guests like theatre personalities Shankar Tripathi, Bijay Das and noted litterateur Dr Gourhari Das, who is the president of Satabdira Kalakar, the curtain went up and the drawing room of Madhusudan Rout (Rajendra Das) came to light where his wife Chandramukhi (Rashmita Sahoo), two sons Kamal (Ratikant Patra) and Amal (Jagannath Rath) and two daughters-in-law (Lalita-Mamata Mandal and Namita-Ankita Mohapatra) are gossiping.

Just then Madhusudan enters with a bag containing small fish. Instead of lauding him, all the family members including his wife give him an earful for not bringing bigger fish.

Since his retirement and transferring the landed property with building to his wife’s name, it becomes a part of his life to be subjected to such mistreatments. On that day, he decides to end his life and goes to a nearby railway station.

There he meets some antisocials (Kishan Pattanayak, Hari Paikray and Rituraj Dash) who forced him to drink liquor. In a drunken state, he goes to the railway tracks and lies there. Then a fairy ( Subhashree Mishra) comes from the heaven and saves Madhusudan.

From here the story gathers pace.

It is when the antisocials, their leader (Sanjeev Kumar Jena), a police constable try to harass him, the angel comes to his rescue. When she touches them, they feel an electric shock like experience and collapse on the ground. Since then, they start worshipping Madhusudan as their guru.

One day, his two sons see people worshipping him in market. Reaching home, they narrate what they saw in the market before their mother and wives. The greedy family members then manage to bring him back to the house and start behaving well with him.

With the passage of time, the magical power of the fairy spreads far and wide and an official (Pawan Pradhan) from Philadelphia arrives to take the fairy along with him to his country.He leaves no stone unturned to get the magical fairy but before he can succeed in his conspiracy, Madhusudan let her go to the world from where she comes.

The message of the play was loud and clear that all should live a happy life with no space for greed and ill will towards anyone.

This reviewer found the artistes, who were for the first time facing audience after their workshop, delivered up to the expectation. Senior theatre personalities Pradeep Biswal and Bijay Das too heaped praise on the artistes for their excellent acting skill and wished them a bright future in their chosen path.

At the end of the play, the guests distributed certificates among the students who underwent training at the workshop started in September 2024 and ended in February 2025.

Music-Pratap Rout

Light-Krushna Behera

Stage-Sangram Maharana and Nrusingha Behera

Makeup-Narendra Senapati

Dress-Kartik Sahoo