FURRUT : A theatre for children

Text : Upendra Kishore Roychowdhury

Drama Design Music Composition & Direction
Raja Bhattacharya
Production Blank Verse

A. PREAMBLE
“A child can make an honest and exciting contribution to the theatre if he is allowed the personal freedom to experience……….We learn through experience and experiencing, no one teaches anyone anything. This is true for the infant moving from kicking to crawling to walking as it is for the scientist with his equations” – Viola Spolin. Bertolt Brecht calls Theatre as an entertaining and an educational media. It can make ‘education’ a subject of entertainment as well as the ‘entertainment’, an education. It teaches us to cross our mental limits and to reach a land of creativity. And creativity obviously indulges in the process of meticulous refinement of human beings. And that is why our endeavor is primarily meant for kids. Probably, it would be the first Bengali theatre-production where elders are working for children so that, far from the madding crowd of too pragmatic people, they could find their realm in the land of imagination, music, colour and delight. Yet, an elder can also find his Society in a tongue-in-cheek manner as the play continuously responds sarcastically to the question of politics. So, however, the play has successfully overcome the bars of being a children theatre and reached into the realm of a Dark Comedy on present socio-political milieu.

 B. SYNOPSIS
The Book of Tuntuni (the warbler or the tailor-bird) is a collection of bedtime stories for children by Sri Upendra Kishore Roychowdhury has been read by almost all of us. The story of ‘Furrut’ is taken from that collection. King’s treasure was being stolen everyday by a naughty bird. Failed again and again to catch it, the king with his counsels became pestered. And so, the state affair was shelved up. Moreover, the continuous ridiculing of the tiny creature made the king furious causing a severe hypertension. However, the bird was caught and the king decided to eat it fried. But, making fool of the seven queens, the tricky bird fled. The king had to eat a fried frog, instead of a fried bird, unknowingly. But the bird then helped get the cat out of the bag. Consequently, the seven queens lost their noses as punishment. At last, when the bird was arrested permanently, the king wished to swallow it with water. He did it. But failed to digest. Tuntuni, the bird made a revolt in king’s stomach. And so, the king had to belch it out in haste. Meanwhile, following the royal command, the sentinels, who were ready to slaughter the bird, whacked their swords. And just a narrow shave. The bird fled, and the king lost his nose instead.

C. DRAMATIZATION
The dramatization of any text is a different creation, itself. Thus, keeping the normal flow of the literature as it is, theatre takes its own shape and form. This particular drama is not an isolated one. Further a different theatre starts whirling around the primary one. Often the grinning face of Brechtian alienation peeps through the shades of acting. The actors seem to toy with Time and Space to juggle them with the text. Simultaneously, it may be presumed that the actors are explaining the subject namely ‘Acting’; and the stage has become the epicenter of this continuous ‘plagiarism’. With abundant repetition it is being exhibited that the king is not the real king, but just performing the role of the same. Probably, this is the primary law of being an ‘Epic Theatre’. Taking the freedom of theatre, certain new themes have been incorporated, when some portions, eliminated, of-course maintaining a strict vigil to keep the omissions within negligible limit. Dialogues have sprouted out form the mundane world, with obvious ease and innocence, sprinkling the essence of lullaby. On the contrary, the characters have been enriched their gait and words with the qualities of folktales. None of them is drawn form any fairyland, but their existence is very palpable within our reach, alive in our well-known mortal world, form the different sects of society as per their class identification. Dialogues fail to keep the unity of both Time and Space. And that creates the fun. To enhance the impish fun certain parodies of some famous songs and poetry have been placed beside the songs written for the play, to make a complete ‘musical nonsense’, without spoiling the basic innocence of the story. Thus goes the dramatization that comprises some improvisations, also, to be shown on stage. To children, the play obviously arises the web of laughter. And, if the adults can find something satirized, our endeavor would get yet another feather in its crown.

D. THE TASK
Firstly, to touch the unexplored field where elders are performing for kids, children are chosen to be the target audience. Besides, the parents can find back their childhood in watching their once forgotten favorite being staged. Secondly, the production has to be a blockbuster one providing the audience with purest theatrical amusement. That needs some powerful actors and an ambience to stage their best. So we have chosen some of the best artistes and the best crewmembers, also, from Kolkata stage. Apart from all these, to nourish our creative self we have decided to work with ‘Nonsense’ literature as it smarts our sense continuously to the great extent of humanity. We know, it is a tough task but not impossible. In fact, ‘nonsense drama’ is nothing new in Bengali literature. Shri Sukumar Roy, the great son of Shri Upendra Kishore, has endowed us a lot with his gems. Unfortunately this portion has not been enlisted as the serious theatrical attribution. So they are hiding their faces behind the juvenile literature. We are trying hard to rediscover that face and also to revere the most jolly and remarkably delightful genre of Bengali literature.

E. REHEARSAL
The production has taken almost 90days of rigorous rehearsal to be completed. The process also comprises a short-term workshop of 15days on acting, acrobatics and music. These three ingredients are most inevitable for our production. Initially, we managed the school premises of the Mitra Institution (Main) at Sealdah to start with. Afterwards, we have shifted for some better space and the local auditoria where the work has been provided with logistics like sound, light, set etc. at the advanced phase of making. F. PREMIERE The production of ‘FURRUT: a theatre for children’ has been premiered on 1 July, 6.30pm at Rabindra Sadan, Kolkata in the Odeon’2006, the Hutch Theatre Festival.

CAST & CREW

Casts

Raja Habuchandra Debshankar Halder
Mantri Gobuchandra Dipak Mitra
Tuntuni Mandira Banerjee [Bhattacharya]
Ghoshak Samrat Bose
Koshdaksh Prabir Das
Parswachar Aniruddha Dasgupta
Madan Raja Bhattacharya
Gupi Paramananda Ghosh
Chhana Aratrika Ghosh
Pona Aryabrata Bhattacharya
Clown 1 Ambarish Das
Clown 2 Krishnendu Ghosh
Lights SudipSanyal

Decor Bablu Mistry & Sandip Suman Bhattacharya
Make-up Aloke Debnath
Costume Mandira Banerjee [Bhattacharya]
Music Players
Gautam Goswamy,
Pallab Das,
Nandakishore Das,
Anirban Bose,
Durgapada Dhali,
Krishnendu Ghosh,
Palash Gayen.
Dissemination
Siddhartha Sen,
Rupak Mitra
Subhrasamujjwal Bose
Arrangements
Rwituparna Bagchi, Ruma Mitra & Biplab Naha Biswas Credits Chandi Lahiri, Late Madan Mohan Banerjee, Rupa Bhattacharya, Sangeeta Ghosh, Mitra Institution[Main].

Drama, Design, Music composition & Direction Raja Bhattacharya