Titas Dutta reflects on Samuho’s two patriarchy-smashing Bengali plays, ahead of maiden shows in Bengaluru
Atho Hidimba Kotha is part of the Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival 2024, while Bhasaili Re will be staged at Courtyard Koota and Beru Art Space
By Reema Gowalla
Kolkata’s Birati Samuho Performers Collective (Samuho) — a group known for its patriarchy-smashing women and queer narratives — is bringing two thought-provoking Bengali plays to Bengaluru this month. Bhasaili Re will take the stage at Courtyard Koota on November 7 and at Beru Art Space on November 9. Meanwhile, Atho Hidimba Kotha will be performed as part of the Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival 2024 on November 8.
Both the plays reimagine ancient texts to give it a more modern twist, reflecting the ills of today’s society. Directed by Titas Dutta, Atho Hidimba Kotha ‘challenges the dominant Brahminical patriarchal perspective and exposes the discriminatory structures that perpetuate Inequality’. The plot focuses on Hidimba, a character from the Mahabharata, which is often overshadowed by the Pandavas and Kauravas. The cast of the play includes Nabadeepa, Gargi, Sritama, Mome, Sayani, Shruti, Srijaini, Barsha, Mondira, Dishari and Titas. Music for the play is composed by Adrij and Jitaditya, while light design is done by Subho. Backstage and production work is taken care of by Dwaipayan.
Bhasaili Re, on the other hand, is a musical directed by Sudakshina Choudhury. The story sheds light on Behula, from the Bengali mediaeval saga Manasa Mangal Kavya, who is traditionally portrayed as an ideal wife, devoted to patriarchal expectations. In the show, an aged Behula ‘reexamines her life through a feminist lens’. Titas, Barsha, Sayani, Adrij and Jitaditya comprise the cast, while they also take care of the live music for the play. Subho is in charge of light and Nabadeepa and Mome handle backstage responsibilities.
Samuho is a non-hierarchical queer and women-centred collective of storytellers, performers, writers and artists from diverse backgrounds. Ahead of the shows, Titas spoke about the essence and purpose of the collective, the challenges that they face as theatremakers in West Bengal, the making of the two plays, and more. Excerpts from the candid conversation with TheatreRoom:
Q. Tell us about Atho Hidimba Kotha…
A. Atho Hidimba Kotha is our collective’s oldest running play. We had opened the show before the pandemic in 2019. Since then, we have done 55 shows and counting. It’s a collective effort. I would say we primarily work on devising processes. So, we don’t dabble much in the epic or popular traditional text, which is mostly found in religious, mythical, anecdotal or parable form. Also in that, we find very less representation of people like us. Queer people’s life and history are barely represented in those texts. And if mentioned, most of the time it’s in a negative or controversial context. Later when conversations about people from the LGBTQIA+ community finally became a part of India’s arts and cultural spectrum, it’s either stigmatised or misrepresented. Particularly in West Bengal, we were subjected to a lot of hardships in the theatre space.
Not that there’s no queer presence on the stage at all. But the entire system that’s running the theatre circuit is still very patriarchal and male-dominated. So much so that if a woman is holding the director’s position, she’s expected to mould herself accordingly just to be respected, heard or seen. These are some of the social vices that we responded to while creating this play. Thus, on one hand, Atho Hidimba Kotha is talking about the ‘Brahmanical patriarchy’ at large, while in bits and pieces, the play is also focussed on the everyday struggles that actors face. That’s one of the reasons this devised piece has been widely staged and well-received by the audience. While writing and directing this play, we were quite sure for whom we wanted to perform this show.
Q. Who is the target audience for this play?
A. Our focus has always been the section of people in society who do not regularly watch plays. We wanted to break free from the proscenium space, which is quite prevalent in Kolkata. Most of the plays in the state are created for the proscenium auditoriums that are frequented by a large audience. But people living in small towns and cities cannot afford the time and money to enter such places. Thus, the middle-class and upper middle-class families are mostly the consumers of this art form in Bengal. We wanted to change that scenario without compromising its form or content. We have consciously designed the entire play as a ‘space-generic’ project that can be staged in an open space just as much as it can be showcased in a proscenium space. We use the ‘distance of bodies’ as the marker of the space rather than using the proscenium geometry. Apart from that, the material used in the play is also quite light, sustainable and affordable. In terms of musical instruments, we have used the harmonium, djembe and a few bamboo sticks tips.
Out of the 55 shows we have done so far, around 30 are done in a village setting. And it would probably not be wrong to say that we have reached at least 5,000–6,000 new audiences over the past five-six years. These audiences are not the common theatregoers. We have also changed our show timings just to ensure that the womenfolk get to see our performances.
Q. What’s the inspiration behind the forehead and eye makeup that Samuho artists often wear?
A. The forehead and eye makeup is inspired by Koodiyattam dancers, especially the way they do it during lochanam performances. It helps us distinguish between the actors and the characters they play. Meanwhile, it also makes all the actors look identical, so that people cannot identify them, as one person plays several characters in the play. This makeup helps accentuate the artists’ eyes and their movements. Sometimes, we perform in a meadow or next to a paddy field, where we have a big canvas as the backdrop. Such makeup helps us keep the audiences’ focus intact and not get distracted by other elements in the space.
Q. Is this Samuho’s first performance in Bengaluru?
A. Yes, we are coming to Bengaluru for the first time, and it would not have been possible had Ranga Shankara not included our play in their festival lineup. We are absolutely thrilled and very grateful to this iconic institution for this. I have performed at Ranga Shankara before, as part of other theatre groups, but this is the first time I am bringing my own group to the city.
We have performed at a few festivals outside West Bengal — including the Chittaranjan Bhawan theatre festival in New Delhi and at the Under The Sal Tree theatre festival in Goalpara, Assam. But Ranga Shankara has always been a special place, for the kind of support they provide to artists and theatremakers, and the way they are curating the space. It’s a huge recognition to be invited to perform there and we are very grateful and excited about it.
Q. You have mentioned facing challenges while taking your play to the masses. Could you elaborate on that a bit?
A. Generally, what we receive is a lot of criticism, with people labelling the piece as ‘not’ mainstream theatre or proscenium performance. But one has to understand that it is also not street theatre per se. It rather takes inspiration from folk performances, such as Jatra, Yakshagana or Kattaikkuttu. It has that storytelling ethos. The show is designed in such a manner that whenever we go to a different space or setting, we adapt accordingly.
For instance, recently when a heinous crime was committed in Kolkata, in which a young doctor was brutally raped and murdered in her workplace, and there were protests on the streets. We performed in those protests. In certain places where we pulled an all-nighter, we couldn’t even put up our backdrop. We performed amid hundreds of people on noisy streets. There were hardly three-four mics for a cast of 15 actors. But we somehow managed to say the dialogues by passing the available mics from one person to the other. We have already done so many shows that now it is comparatively easy for us to overcome such difficulties.
Q. Why did you choose the character of Behula?
A. We have chosen the character of Behula to illustrate our story. In Bengali literature, she is sometimes revered as Sati Behula — the epitome of a virtuous wife. But, at the same time, she is also referred to as a ‘concubine’ from the Court of Paradise. Basically, the archetype of Behula helped us to question the rigid norms that still exist in our society. Based on that transgenerational experience, we created the narrative, questioning the things that are thrown our way by the patriarchal structure.
Q. What’s the goal or purpose of performing these plays?
A. To be honest, our goal for these plays is to become redundant. We want to reach a place where the audience would say, “Oh, such things no longer happen in society. It happened in the past; we don’t relate to it anymore.” But unfortunately, the reality is that the relevance of both these plays — Atho Hidimba Kotha (which was created in 2019) and Bhasaili Re (which came up in 2022) — is only growing by the day. More than being timely, I think we are late in making these pieces. Had they been performed 30 years ago, these plays would have been equally relevant. Questions about caste, gender, basic rights of the indigenous and marginalised, as well as those related to cultural, language and political power hegemony would stay relevant as long as the system continues to be oppressive. In fact, that’s one of the reasons we’re compelled to make this play as a female- and queer-centred collective. We try to look at history from a queer-feminist lens.
Many people also call it ‘activism through art’. But we are merely theatremakers and actors. We are not claiming to be doing something which is outside of theatre. However, because of the social scenario, even being ourselves and telling our side of the story cannot be done without it becoming an act of activism. We have no intention of becoming activists. All we want is to work in a much more non-hierarchical and linear set-up, where everybody gets equal opportunity to express and perform.
Catch shows of Bhasaili Re at Courtyard Koota on November 7 (7.30pm) and at Beru Art Space on November 9 (7pm). Meanwhile, Atho Hidimba Kotha will be staged on November 8 (7.30pm), as part of the Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival 2024. You can book your tickets here.
