By Subhomay Mukherjee
Calcutta, Dec 4, 2010 (Washington Bangla Radio) On 3rd December, 2010, The British Council, Kolkata organized a discussion on the History of Political Plays in Britain and Bengal comprising of David Edgar from UK and Kaushik Sen from Bengal.
David Edgar founded Britain's first graduate playwriting course at the University of Birmingham. He was appointed as Britain's first Professor of Playwriting in 1995. His original stage plays range from Death Story to Black Tulips. His stage adaptations include Albie Sach's Jail Diary (Royal Shakespeare Company), Joe Berke's Mary Barnes (Birmingham Rep then Royal Court) and a multi-award-winning version of Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby, Edgar returned to the theme of Destiny in two plays about multicultural Britain, Playing with Fire (National Theatre) and Testing the Echo (Out of Joint).
Kaushik Sen is an actor and director in theatre and films. He runs the group Swapnasandhani which produces several socially relevant plays like Birpurush, Darjiparar Marjinara, Bonkababur Bandhu, Daakghar and others. He won the prestigious BFJA awards for best supporting actor for is performance in the Mrinal Sen directed film Aamar Bhuvan.
David and Kaushik shared their views regarding change in the language pf political plays over time and role of political plays in the socio-economic scenario.
As David talked about regarding what is happening in Britain's contemporary Drama scenario, Kaushik elaborated on the history of drama from mythological age to present to prove drama's role as a political messenger for all time. Kaushik also spoke about the relation between recent Bengali political plays and "changed political scenario" of Bengal.
The two hours discussion is very valuable and has been enjoyed by full packed audience.
- WBRi Kolkata News Service