বাংলায় পড়ুন
It will not be wrong to say that Kolkata is the cultural hub of our country. The city has exceptionally talented people in almost every cultural field; from singers to dancers to actors and other performers. Apart from singing and dancing, another part of arts that is still alive in the the city is theatre. And today on World Theatre Day let us take a look at theatre culture of Kolkata. the city witnessed its first theatre show on a proscenium stage in 1795. The show was held at the Kolkata’s (then Calcutta) Bengally Theatre and it was the Bengali version of ‘The Disguise’ by Richard Jodrell. Theatre was an important part of Bengal’s culture for a long time; it even played an integral part during the freedom struggle of India. For example, Dinabandhu Mitra’s ‘Nildarpan’ that portrayed the brutal exploitation of peasants of the Indigo Plantations by the Britishers. With time theatre too evolved and changed like during the era of Bengal renaissance European influenced proscenium theatres emerged in Calcutta. Theatre mostly dwelled in Calcutta at that time whereas rural India continued performing the folk-theatre or popularly known as ‘jatra’; which is still performed in different parts of the state of West Bengal. Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore too penned down some plays commonly known as Rabindra Nritya that are still performed on stage. Although Tagore’s play gained popularity after Sombhu Mitra’s theatre group ‘Bohurupi’ started executing them.
The theatre is said to polish an artist and bring out the best in them. We have got some brilliant artists like Utpal Dutta, Shambu Mitra, Rudraprasad Sengupta are a few to name. during the nineteenth-century group, theatre started rising in Kolkata. Group theatre is neither professional nor commercial, they believe in experimentation in their subject’s theme, content, and production. Sitting in the twenty-first century with all the modern technologies and mobile applications it feels good that a traditional art-form like theatre has been still kept alive in the city. It is one of the many reasons that attests the fact that Kolkata is a place where both the old and the new can reside in harmony. We hope that in the coming future as well theatre will be there to entertain us.
