Theatre review: Oh Swapno

Director: Prithwis Rana
Duration: 80 minutes
Cast: Sumanta Roy, Dipa Natta, Surojit Paul
Rating: ***

Staging a Badal Sircar play poses its own risks. Throughout his life, the playwright took great care to snip off every possible bit of extravagance — be it a part of the emotional journey of the play or the design of the set. Instead, he implemented his own style of in-your-face storytelling through minimal props and help. And he took all this effort just to come closer to the audience through his idea of Third Theatre. Oh Swapno, Kalindi Bratyajan’s latest production, is based on Sircar’s Shonibar. The play follows a minimalist approach in its sets and stagecraft. But what really brings it closer to the audience is the crisis that Bengali middle-class society faces daily.
The story is a journey of dreams and reality. What is there in the life of a middle-class serviceman apart from the dream of changing his wretched life overnight? Dibyendu (Sumanta Roy) — the protagonist of our play — dreams too. From getting recognition from his boss to impressing the beautiful friend of his sister and making enough money for his family — Dibyendu dreams to change it all. And when the dream ends, he faces his life and at that point the play becomes more relevant to our lives that go through similar dilemmas and disappointment. The tug-of-war between being professionally successful and enjoying life becomes mutually exclusive at certain points of time.
Director Prithwis Rana makes every effort to put up a realistic play. His stage is completely frill-free. The play is dotted with references from

Seemabaddha

,

Pratidwandi

, Nayak and more. And the director uses a unique method to weave in these references in the play. With an AV projector, the relevant clippings of the films are shown to the audience. And with the help of this, the play runs between three planes — the dream sequences, reality and cross references.
At one point Prithwis resorts to Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, and this is where he goes overboard. While the idea of projecting the film clips remains interesting, it also, at some point, looks like an easy escape from doing the hard work of actually incorporating the references in the play through storytelling and acting.
The play also showcases some good performances. Sumanta is strong as the protagonist, who doesn’t have a tinge of glamour in his mundane life. Subrata Pathak as Dibyendu’s office junior leaves a mark with his acting. Surojit Paul as Ramsaran is entertaining with his seemingly comical breaks. Dipa Natta as Dibyendu’s mother, Priyanka Chaterjee as his sister and Ruma Poddar as the romantic interest also put up decent shows. Through the AV system, the director also projects name scrolls with very interesting caricatures of the characters, done by Soham Sen.
The play, overall, is captivating and entertaining. It is not a long one. The team has successfully made it crisp and to-the-point and hence it is definitely a one-time watch.