The pathological yet succinct accentuation of four mythical characters of the epic Mahabharata - Draupadi, Shakuntala, Dusshola and Jona brought to mind the harsh truth of the patriarchal society of this land to the cheerful audience at the Banani Puja Mandap. “Kohe Birangona,” a theater play adapted from one of Michael Madhusudan Dutt’s rhapsodies “Birangona Kabya,” was a key performance of the Nabami celebration at the Mandap.
Ingenious playwright of the Manipuri Theatre, Shubhasish Sinha, depicted the whole story using the four emotions of love, envy, degradation and rebellion.
Sinha mentioned: ‘It can be called an adaptation if we consider the differences between the literature and theatre form. I had gone through an experimental process to make a contemporary drama from classic poetry with a single performer on the stage.”
Keeping the blank verse form from the original epic, Sinha selected four out of the eleven sections for the theatrical adaptation. These are “Shakuntala towards Dushmanta,”“Draupadi towards Arjuna,”“Dusshola towards Jayadratha” and “Jona towards Niloddoja.” All four heroic characters questioned the conventional customs of seeing women and raised voice against their irresponsible husbands by reading out letters.
Jyoti Sinha, a key role to the play acted all the four mythical characters in different tones and postures to signify the emotions dynamically. Despite the noisy environment at the mandap, Jyoti’s enthusiastic performance enchanted the theatre loving people. Bishal Sinha, Ujjal Sinha and Anjana Sinha accompanied Sharmila Sinha in the chorus section. Notable personalities, including Speaker of the Parliament Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury and Professor Muhammed Zafar Iqbal, were present at the event.
The first show of this play took place in the national studio theatre hall back in 2010. It has been staged in different places in India and Bangladesh and won the Abdul Jabbar Khan Award as the best theatre play from the Institute of Diploma Engineers Bangladesh.
