A tale of oppression
Aranyak Natya Dal premieres its latest play
Ershad Kamol
The story of oppression on the colourful ethnic people named Santal in the play Raaraang reminds of other stories of discriminating the ethnic people in different parts of the country by the ruling Bangalees. Aranyak Natya Dal staged the premier show of the 40th production of the group on September 2 at the Experimental Theatre Stage.Mamunur Rashid's first ethnic play Raaraang--a Santal word meaning battle cry--depicts the miserable struggle of the poor Santal people in northern Bangladesh against different oppressive measures like feudalism, religion and others imposed by the dominating Bangalees. Not just a fragmented story of oppression, it is also a tale of the Santals' struggle since the partition of the Indian subcontinent. Through the true story of Alfred Shoren the playwright has portrayed their revolution against the discrimination. However, the 'battle cry' fails in the face of treachery of the Bangalees. Mamun has used standard Bangla as dialect for both Bangalee and Santal communities in the play. But, to represent the culture of the ethnic group, he has used some traditional Santal songs. Also the director of the play, Mamun unfolds the story through three narrators. While the good characters are portrayed with a realistic touch, the evil ones have got sarcastic traits like animalistic, childish and robotic ones. Mamun has successfully used all the parts of the huge rectangular set. The Santal choreography is interesting; however, that in the final battle scene could be improved. Faiz Zahir has used aashon (empty performing space where the audience sits on the four sides of the set) for the set. As the light designer Faiz has divided the stage into a few zones and used no general light. Moreover, he has expressed the mood and tempo of the play by using symbolic colour effects. Music composer Parimal Majumdar has followed traditional Santal music for the play. Like other Aranyak productions, in Raaraang also, a good number of new performers were seen in major roles. The pair of Chanchal Chowdhury as the OC and AKM Hasan as the Sub Inspector, with their robotic movements, and the monkey like gestures of Sanjib in the role of Bhuga were really enjoyable. Aminul Islam Helal as the Missionary also performed well. However, Kamrul Hasan could not maintain the required childishness in the role of Linku Ram. It rather appeared to be clownish.
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