Our first production was launched in 1978. It was Pratham Partho and Sankranti – two plays by the renowned author and playwright, Buddhadeb Basu. The political turmoil of the 1970-s, a decade when the government and the opposition strove with equal fervour to establish a reign of terror, reminded us time and again of Mahabharata, of that fratricidal conflict that had laid waste the entire land. Both Pratham Partho and Sankranti are set in that apocalyptic time when even that wisest of man had become embroiled in an unholy war to uphold justice.
While Pratham Partho revolves around the last ditch attempts on the eve of the Kurukshetra war to avoid it, Sankranti depicts the events of the day on which the war finally came to an end with Duryodhana’s ultimate defeat. Our first production can be described as an essay in understanding our own predicament in the light of Basu’s remarkable reworking of the Mahabharata myth.
Credits –
Lights – Manoranjan Ghosh
Music - Partha Sengupta
Stage – Manu Datta
Direction - Salil Bandyopadhyay
