BENGALURU : Renowned theatre director Badal Sircar’s Baaki Itihaas, is an interrogation of the 60s, of the middle-class obsessions with owning a home, making a career and getting promotions at one’s job. Th play, at large, looks into how a man tries to find meaning to his life by striving for such goals.
Based on this play, theatre director Ranjon Ghoshal tries to bring forth a similar theme in present times with his English play, A Matter of Life and Death, albeit with his own twist.
The story is set in the Calcutta of the 60s. A writer couple fictionalises a prequel to the suicide of a man about whom they read in the newspaper. While the original play was rather controversial due to the support it lent to death being a better alternative over life, Ranjon’s play however leans towards a meaningful life rather than death. “In the 60s of Calcutta, the kind of values and social structure was different from other places where say people thought being a lecturer or a professor meant you were well-off,” says Ranjon, who has been into theatre for over 40 years. “The play is a story within a story,” he adds.
The director prefers to leave the interpretation of the climax to the audience – whether one must choose death over life. However, the universal message that he wishes to bring out is that regardless of the division among nations, a catastrophe does not affect one but all nations. “We need to understand that we all can’t live alone,” he points out. Actor Vishnu Mohandas says that although the play is set in a different time and locale, its themes are relevant even today.
“Being in a metropolitan city like Bengaluru, I find a lot of working-class people stuck in the drudgery of the daily humdrum and struggling to find meaning in life,” he says. For the actor, playing the role of an intellectual who eventually drowns in his own monotonous reality, was the challenge. The play is presented by Forum-Three and will be staged at KH Kala Soudha on June 2 at 4 pm and 7.30 pm.