Theatre
Nabanna: Of Famine and Resilience
নবান্ন
Bijon Bhattacharya · 1944
Synopsis
Aminpur, a village in Bengal. The play opens on 9 August 1942, with the Quit India uprising, in which Panchanani, the wife of the old peasant Pradhan Samaddar, follows the torchbearers. Then famine strikes: Pradhan has lost two sons and loses his reason, moneylenders and rice merchants hold the village, a tidal wave destroys the crops. The Samaddars set out on foot for Calcutta, where polite society offers them only indifference.
Context
The play was first staged on 24 October 1944 at the Srirangam theatre in Calcutta, by the Indian People's Theatre Association, under the direction of Sombhu Mitra and of the author, who played Pradhan. It broke with the commercial stage: peasant language, a collective hero, a mobile set. Performed throughout India, it raised hundreds of thousands of rupees for relief, and fed into K. A. Abbas's film Dharti Ke Lal. Arjun Ghosh translated it into English.
Who it is for
An episodic play, in the language of the peasants of Bengal. It helps to know that the great famine of Bengal caused more than two million deaths. No French translation.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as a turning point of Indian theatre: it opened the era of committed group theatre in Bengal.
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