Theatre Review: Rashtrio

Director: Chandan Sen
Cast: Chandan Sen, Shantilal Mukherjee, Panchanan Banerjee, Soma Naha
Rating: ***1/2

How the omnipotent state creates an enemy out of nobody — unleashing its armaments of coercion — and generates a case to satisfy the very personal interest of powerful elites has often been a central issue in

theatre

. The ruthlessness, cruelty and terror with which the state comes down on a helpless individual have been brutally presented in

Rashtrio

.
The Natyaanan's

play

, written by Sumantra Chattopadhyay and directed by Chandan Sen, is a docu-drama based on the infamous Quebec litigation, in which an innocent man, Willbert Coffin, was falsely charged and executed by the Canadian administration in 1954. Coffin (Rahul Acharya) — a working-class mineral prospector — lives a humble life with wife Marion (Soma Naha) and daughter Lisa (Asita Sen Mitra). In the first five minutes of the play, we get to hear that three American tourists have been killed in the woods of Quebec. The murder exposes the flimsy law and order situation, and subsequently, the main economy of the locality — tourism — gets crippled. In fact, foreign investors too threaten to pull out their projects.
Embarrassed by the situation, the Governor General, Duplex (Panchanan Banerjee), orders head of intelligence, Captain Matte (Shantilal Mukherjee), to catch the killer by hook or by crook. Captain Matte — a crook himself — deviously frames Coffin as the murderer and meticulously wipes off each and every hope of a fair trial, which includes his lawyer Herbert (Chandan Sen). Willbert Coffin is executed.
The play ends with a hint of a global uprising against this state-orchestrated murder.
Natyaanan is one of those traditional

Bengali theatre

houses where more than one star seamlessly works in coordination with each other and presents something out of the ordinary. This courtroom drama is no different.
When three very skilled and experienced thespians of Bengali theatre — Chandan, Shantilal and Panchanan — take centre stage, sparks are bound to fly. But theatre is also about teamwork. Along with the trio, Soma Naha as Marian, Rahul Acharya as Coffin and Tuhin Mukherjee as one of the public prosecutors, Noel, are noteworthy. Also, the Rita Skeeter-influenced news presenter of Quebec Radio, Caroline Archer — played by Nabanita — is wonderful. Caroline’s sensuous presence enhances the glamour quotient in the play, no doubt. Clubbed with meticulously crafted uncomforting lights and a simplistic stage with a humongous cross at the backdrop, the play is intensely entertaining.
However, there is room for perfecting the presentation. The actors, on more than one occasion, mistook the name of co-actors on the September 17 show at Academy of Fine Arts. The play also depicted a couple of overreactions. Nevertheless, it offers a tight, contemporary political drama that will compel the audience to question state authoratarianship.