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Bou Bashonti

A play with the spirit of Liberation War

ERSHAD KAMOL
Usually plays on the Liberation War portray only freedom fighters, the Pakistani Army and their collaborators. Ratan Siddiqui's play Bou Bashonti is an exception to this trend. In this work, Ratan depicts the story of a remote rural village during our Liberation War.
Udichi Drama Unit production, Bou Bashonti at Mahila Samity Stage on February 11, includes common characters of a village such as a feudal lord, two thieves, peasants, village maidens, a tailor and others. The play revolves around a radio. Through the dialogues as well as the radio broadcast, Ratan has recreated the world of the rural Bangladeshis who did not actively participate in the Liberation War.
When the freedom struggle begins, the usual activities like marriage and love do not change; but the total structure of the village changes. A village fraud, turned into a Pakistani collaborator, strives to become the village leader. The play ends with the return of stability in the village just after the war.
Azad Abul Kalam, through his directorial skills, has presented the play from a unique angle by dwelling on the psychological element during the war.
By depicting a tailor making flags in the opening and closing scene, he tries to capture the dream of the common people. In the opening scene, by showing three Pakistani
flag and one Bangladeshi flag with the National anthem of Pakistan, he turns the spotlight on the dream of freedom.
At the end of the play, the director indicates the lack of patriotism after Independence.
Azad has used masks for his players. The aim is to represent a total community by using a few artistes. By the doll- like movement of the artistes, he indicates that the common Bangladeshi villagers are always attracted by the urban way of life. By changing the pace of movements of the artistes, he successfully creates different settings as well with few artistes. And the movements are akin to traditional Japanese Theatre.
Using some painted nets at the backstage, set designer M Shaiful Islam successfully portrays life in rural Bangladesh. The remainder of the set provided the director with more space
for blocking of the characters.
Light designer M Shaiful Islam, using symbolic colour effects on the net made set crafts, created a distinct atmosphere. However, his design did not pay heed to visibility. As a result, gestures of the artistes often remained out of focus. Moreover, the light effects failed to delineate some important props, which had very important roles for the mood and tempo of the play.
At the opening day of the six daylong drama festival, the Udichi Drama Branch displayed good teamwork. In the ranks of good performers were Ratan Deb as Badar, Shahidul Alam Dipu as Moin and Hamida Rahman Nupur as Rizia.