What is the role of violence in today's world? Is it an inevitable concomitant of the human condition? Is it a necessary evil? Or is it a tool that can be used to achieve a more humane world? Peter Shaffer raises these questions in his romantic play The Gift of the Gorgon - and through them he tries to understand the riddle that is man.
We chose to stage Tomar Andhar Tomar Alo, in 1999, based on Shaffer’s play, because we felt that a time has come when we have to decide which is the good and which is the evil. The turning away of the face and pretending that violence is not there until it reaches my doorsteps, - or tackling organised violence with organised violence to secure a better world for our children. Do we - the ordinary, the common, the frightened, the socially conscious, the enlightened, the responsible, the educated citizens have any concrete roles to play in this? Do we remain silent because it does not touch our lives directly - because it is too big and we are too small? The struggle described in this play is also a metaphor for the inner struggle between good and evil faced by all human beings. The play forces us to delve into ourselves to know how essential violence is to society - and to choose for ourselves the right path.
Credits –
Lights – Gautam Ghosh
Music, Stage, Translation and Direction – Saswati Biswas
Cast-
Helen – Saswati Biswas
Maid – Chati Choudhury
Philip – Pradip Biswas
Edward – Gautam
Damsinski – Sankar Ghosh
Jarvis - Asesh Choudhury
Jo Beth – TrinaNileena Banerjee
Others – Anita Roy, Abhijit Choudhury, Ananda Bhattacharya, Bishnupriya Basak, Ananda Bhattacharya, Asish Gupta
