Debshankar and Ujjwal team up to pay tribute to Girish once again

Time and again, several theatre groups in Bengal have celebrated the life and works of Bengal’s one of the most eminent thespian,

Girish Chandra Ghosh

. This time, Chakdaha Natyajan recreated Girish Ghosh’s Bilwamangal with a twist. Written and directed by playwright Ujjwal Chattopadhyay, Debshankar Halder plays the lead in this production.
Bilwamangal was premiered in August in Girish Mancha. Earlier, Ujjwal had penned a play, Ek Mancha Ek Jibon, based on the life of Girish Ghosh. Directed by Soumitra Mitra and staged by Purba Paschim, Debshankar plays the lead in that play too.
Elaborating on Bilwamangal, Ujjwal said, “I have kept the main flavour of the play intact. However, I tried to deconstruct it a bit. In the original play, Bilwa becomes spiritual and seeks

salvation

in the name of Lord Krishna. In the original play, Girish Ghosh’s inclination towards Greek tragedy was imminent. In our play, despite Bilwa’s Krishna connection, the protagonist comes back to human love. His longing for Chintamani — a sex worker he is deeply in love with — ends as they unite.”
While Debshankar plays Bilwa in the play, Shailee Dutta essays the role of Chintamani. “I have done four plays this year while carrying on with the older production. With Subhasis Mukherjee, I have done Babai and with Kaushik Sen, I have done Ekla Chalo Re. This is also a very important production and I think it is rather good,” Debshankar told us. Elaborating on the characters, Ujjwal also added, “There is a character called Pagalini in the play. She has an interesting trait. Pagalini, played by Sanjita Mukherjee, is the narrator of the play.”