Natyam Repertory staged a long-established Bengal theatre titled Damer Madar in a new appearance at the Experimental Theatre Hall of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy on April 24 in the capital. The play is written by Sadhana Ahmed and directed by Irin Pervin Lopa. This is the maiden production of the troupe and the audience witnessed the twenty-first staging of the play.
The story of the play is centered on a faction with a female Madam Pir (spiritual leader) who teaches her fellows the perfection of worship through her religious wisdom. The Chowdhury clan is the anti faction in the story. It is their belief that the Pir is contravening the prime law of the religion through her practice. At the same time, a marriage proposal is put forward by the Chowdhury clan. Their proposal entails the hand of Chowdhury’s handicapped grandson in marriage to Madam Pir’s beautiful granddaughter. Although she married once, the Pir now wants her granddaughter to carry on her religious legacy and abstain from the worldly pleasures and refuses the proposal.
A blood-feud breaks out among the two groups and the object of affection of madam Pir’s granddaughter dies in the chaotic fight. In the end, Madam Pir realises that the shrine is not influential enough to protect her devotees and destroys it.
The play is based on a true story and is scripted as a folk narrative, but the director used modern approach of theatre both in designing and way of acting.
Tazmi Noor, Shisir Rahman, Parvin Akhter, Shamima Akhter Fazle Rabbi Sukarno and others donned the central characters of the play while the story of the play is portrayed with a number of religious songs. The modern lighting and staging concept is used intentionally to give the play a new facet.
For thousands of years, the folk narratives have been considered the richest tradition of the theatres of Bengal. It has flourished and sustained through the verbal medium mostly. The narrative of Madam Pir is one of those pieces which has originated from Muslim myths and has been recited in different parts of the land for years among the devotees.