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Journalism of Courage
“Jagannath is the kind of person you will find in every age and era. He is an elemental character, beyond the boundaries of time and space,” Kolkata-based director Arun Mukhopadhyay had said of his legendary play, Jagannath. Created by Chetana to mark their 50th-anniversary last year, Jagannath was invited to open the Bharat Rang Mahotsav at Kamani Auditorium yesterday (February 14), the national theatre festival organised by the National School of Drama in Delhi.
Created in 1977, Jagannath unfolds in a village in pre-Independent India and has an unlikely protagonist, a poor villager who is an underdog in every way. Around him, though, the embers of dissent and protest have begun to flame against the zamindar. The play is inspired by the novella, The True Story of Ah-Q by Chinese writer Lu Xun. Mukhopadhyay brought it into the Indian context by embedding it in the social hierarchies of rural Bengal.
Apart from the storyline, Jagannath has stood out for the presentation which involves intense physical theatre and a powerful opening in which different elements, such as lights and stage design, come together. “It is very tough to play Jagannath because it involves a lot of bodywork,” says Sujan Mukhopadhyay, who played Jagannath.
The production was revived last year after Chetana stopped performing Jagannath in 2014 to focus on new stories. “We did Jagannath again for a new generation of people. I did the play to recall the golden era of theatre in Bengal when we had legendary names such as Shombhu Mitra,” says Sujan. All shows of the play were full, with audiences aware that Chetana does not show this physically demanding play very often. “What I realised was that, though Jagannath is almost 50 years old, its presentation, designs, and characterisation are still relevant,” adds Sujan.
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