“Sutai Sutai Hannah O Shapla," a Bangladeshi musical theatre play based on the Swedish opera, “Den Stora Vävoperan - The Weave," is all set for its Swedish premiere on May 10. The play was developed by Rokeya Rafique Baby and her team under a culture exchange project involving Swedish and Bangladeshi artistes.
Two shows of the musical play will be staged at Stockholm’s Fria Teatern (Free Theatre) on May 10 at 7pm, and on May 11 at 6pm.
The team behind the drama, Theatre Art Unit, left Dhaka for Stockholm, the Swedish capital, on Monday.
The play narrates the story of two women from different corners of the world. Hannah, a Swedish weaver who was born at the turn of the 20th Century, and Shapla, a Bangladeshi garments worker in contemporary times. The play begins with a "gayen" (a storyteller in Bangladeshi folk tradition) starting to narrate the story of Hannah, a celebrated artist and artisan. But soon his "pala" (folk musical drama) is disrupted by the arrival of Shapla, who begins to tell her own story. The pala then moves forward narrating both their stories.
Through the story of Shapla, the tale of how traditional artisanship in Bengal was marginalized in the hands of a mercantile economy also emerges. The play draws a parallel between the two women from different times and different societies, and shows how all women are similar in their struggle to curve out their own niche in a patriarchal world.
The play was first staged in the capital’s Mahila Samiti Auditorium at Baily Road on April 26.
