A Midsummer Night’s Dream is arguably the one play written by William Shakespeare that lends itself most richly to interpretation. This time, it is Bengali theatre group Sansriti which is bringing an adaptation of the madcap caper to town in the form of the play Dream, Dream.
The original play, often thought to be the Bard’s zaniest, portrays the adventures of four young Athenian lovers, a group of amateur actors, their interactions with Theseus, the Duke of Athens, Hippolyta, the queen of the Amazons and fairies who inhabit a moonlit forest. In Dream, Dream directed by acclaimed Kolkata theatre director Debesh Chatterjee, the Duke of Athens and his duchess become the ubiquitous king and queen of the Indian stage while most other characters are contemporised. The fairies become familiar ‘types’ from Bollywood films while the fairy queen is a heroine straight out of a masala movie.
While Dream, Dream retains the original’s structure of a ‘play within a play’ (in Shakespeare’s comedy, a group of country bumpkins gets together to present a play to celebrate Theseus’s wedding) other devices are given a contemporary touch. So, a love-potion, which when rubbed on a sleeper’s eyes makes them fall in love with the first person they see on waking up, becomes a modern invention that blurs the lines between fantasy and reality.
Chatterjee confesses that he has heavily borrowed from Indian popular culture and Bollywood while reinterpreting Shakespeare’s characters. “There are quite a few Bollywood-ish elements in the play and quite a bit of song and dance. In fact, with 19 songs, you could call this play a musical,” says Chatterjee.
Though the play is primarily in Bengali, Chatterjee is confident that anybody with a nodding acquaintance with the storyline of the Shakespearean original will enjoy his play. “There is a lot of physicality in the play and many over-the-top elements along with stereotypes from popular culture, which should make it enjoyable for any theatre-lover,” says Chatterjee. The director has also been inspired by the colourful and melodramatic Bengali folk theatrical form of ‘jatra’, which is seeing a revival in Bengal. Chatterjee, who has earlier interpreted the Rip Van Winkle legend in the form of a modern-day play Winkle Twinkle about a man who goes to sleep in the Naxalite Bengal of the 1970s and wakes up to contemporary reality, also uses satire to poke fun at political targets. At the same time, he assures that Dream, Dream is not a political play. “While there is a message, it is not in-your-face. There is political satire, but those who want to enjoy it is pure entertainment will have no problem doing so,” he clarifies.
Organised by Mareech Events, the entertainment arm of city-based advertising agency Mareech, the performance at Ambedkar Bhavan will be followed by a special focus on the other Bengali obsession: food. A food court with an exotic spread of Bengali food served by popular Bengali restaurants of the city such as Bhajohari Manna, Oh Calcutta, The Esplanade and Bay of Bengal, will also be set up at the venue to round off the evening with doi maacch and ilish paturi. “We’ve noticed that most people want to hang around after watching a play to discuss it and catch up with friends, but have to head home to fix dinner or to a restaurant before it’s closing time. So we decided to provide a mix of good theatre and good food,” saus Utkal Mohanty, director, Mareech Events.
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