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Tomorrow is the 74th birth anniversary of Bangladeshi playwright and theatre artist Natyacharya Selim Al Deen. To mark the day, Swapnadal, a popular Bangladeshi theatre troupe, is organising a two-day festival titled ‘Selim Al Deen Birth Anniversary Festival’ at the Studio Theatre Hall of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy.
With the slogan, ‘Chitrangada-er 100 and Helen Keller-er 50, Bangla Natyar Nobo Jatray Selim-Daharay Bosobas’, the festival will begin with placing a wreath at the grave of Natyacharya at Jahangirnagar University this morning.
Today, Swapnadal will stage the 99th and 100 show of its much-acclaimed production ‘Chitrangada’ at the Studio Theatre Hall of BSA at 6 pm and 7:30 pm respectively. Chitrangada’ is the 11th production of Swapnadal, written by Rabindranath Tagore and directed by Zahid Repon.
The script of the play is an adaptation of a tale in the great eastern epic ‘Mahabharata’, but with new and modern interpretations. Rabindranath wrote the play in two different forms or versions. Swapnadal has prepared the production ‘Chitrangada’ with the poetic drama version. It may be mentioned that dance drama form of ‘Chitrangada’ is well known, because it has been performed by a good number of organisations. On the other side, the poetic drama version of ‘Chitrangada’ has not been staged regularly in modern stage before Swapnadal.
The two-day festival will come to an end tomorrow by staging the play ‘Helen Keller’at the same venue. Helen Keller’ is the 17th production of Swapnadal, written by Apurba Kumar Kundu and directed by Zahid Repon. The cast is Juana Sobnom, while the production manager is Shakhawat Shamol.
Born on August 18, 1949, Selim Al Deen was the pioneer of the neo-theatre movement in Bangladesh. His plays have been included in the curricula of the University of University, Jahangirnagar University, Jadavpur University and others. He received different awards, namely, National Film Award in 1994, Bangla Academy Literary Award in 1984, Ekushey Padak in 2007 and others. His play ‘Hargaj’ was translated into the Swedish language, and the play has been staged in Hindi by the Indian Ranga Kormi Natyadal. He was the founder and chairperson of the Department of Drama and Dramatics at Jahangirnagar University. He passed away on January 14, 2008.
