Shib Mukhopadhyay’s Play: Mahabharat 2

Playwright: Shib Mukhopadhyay
Director: Arna Mukhopadhyay
Group: Natadha, Howrah
Language: Bengali
Duration: 3 hrs

The Play
The period of fourteen years of exile is over for the Pandavas. It is the time for the law to take its rightful course; Duryodhana is supposed to hand-over the land of Indraprastha to his cousins. He denies returning the rightful share. Draupadi urges the Pandavas towards war. At this moment of crisis, the Pandavas seek Krishna’s advice. Krishna agrees to come to Hastinapur for discussion. He meets Bhishma Pitamaha, Karna, Shakuni and Gandhari and requests them not to wage a war. Duryodhana agrees to return the land but there is a mass upsurge against returning the land to the Pandavas. War becomes inevitable.

Director’s Note
Man desires everything for himself. He wishes to possess not only that which is his but also that what is not. In this greed he forgets that he too has a past, he too has kin and kinsmen. Slowly and steadily man moves towards decadence where everything is denuded and only the ‘me’ remains, isolated in the abyss of time. We have tried to understand the pulse of the modern times in the mirror of the mythology. We have tried to convey the stereotypes of human reality in the characters of Duryodhana, Krishna, Draupadi, Arjuna etc. We delved deep to understand the changing facade of modern urban civilization and were amazed to find that Mahabharata is so contemporary!

The Director
Arna Mukhopadhyay is an actor and director with an M. Phil in Dramatic Arts. He started directing plays in the year 2007. Some of the plays directed by him are Ebong Socrates, Caesar-O-Cleopatra, Eka Tughlaq, Bishkaal, Shesh Rakshya, Aleekbabu, Athhoi, and Mahabharat 2. He has also acted in all the plays directed by him, as well as in many plays produced by other popular groups of Kolkata. He has been an actor-trainer imparting theatre training to the youth.

The Playwright
Shib Mukhopadhyay has written more than sixty plays. He has adapted the plays of Tennessee Williams, Bertolt Brecht, Jean Paul Sartre, Anton Chekhov and William Shakespeare. The first part of Mahabharata written by him ended with the Pandavas going to exile. This presentation is a sequel to the same.

The Group
Natadha was established in 1974, and besides performances and training, the group conducts social activities, festivals and publications on theatre. Natadha runs a regular theatre centre at Howrah, West Bengal. It publishes Natyamukhapatra, the only Bengali theatre newspaper which has been published every Thursday for 23 years. The group has staged Raktakarabi for almost forty years.

Cast & Credits
Gandhari Sadhana Mukhopadhyay
Dhritarashtra Koushik Chattopadhyay
Uttora Upabela Pal
Arjuna Arpan Ghoshal
Abhimanyu Rishav Basu
Draupadi Sohini Sarkar
Draupadi’s attendant Anurupa Sen
Nakula Milan Kundu
Sahadeva Sarthak Ash
Bheema Sumit Panja
Yudhishthhira Joydev Ghosh
Kunti Saptadwipa Chattopadhyay
Krishna Rudrarup Mukhopadhyay
Dushshasana Sourav Samanta
Duryodhana Arna Mukhopadhyay
Bidura Subir Goswami
Shakuni Ritam Sarkar
Bheeshma Saumen Bandopadhyay
Drona Susanta Chakraborty
Bhanumoti Swagata Rit
The father Subrata Chattopadhyay
Ambassador of Virata Tufan Singharoy
Sanjaya Sayam Das
Karna Anujoy Chattopadhyay
Bohitra (Attendant to Dhritarashtra) Saheb Dutta
Budhhika (Attendant to Gandhari) Tanuja Dey
Young Duryodhana Tathagata Pal
The Warrior Arup Chakraborty
The People Madhuparna Hatua, Shrabanti Saha, Shrutakirti Rooj, Anupurba Goswami, Amit Das, Pushpendu Sardar, Souvik Mohanta, Sourodeep Mukherjee.

Set Milan Kundu
Assisted by Sarthak Ash
Set Making Subol Maiti
Lights Jayanta Ghosh (Kalyan)
Music operation Bandan Misra
Costume making Bimal Maiti
Paintings Susanta Chakraborty
Make-up Joydev Ghosh
Dance Movements Sumit Panja
Publicity material Sourav Samanta
Teaser Saikat Chattaraj
Logo Design Subrata Chattopadhyay
Production control Sadhana Mukhopadhyay

Playwright Shib Mukhopadhyay
Music & Direction Arna Mukhopadhyay

Contacts
Director, Natadha
7/2 Nabakumar Nandi Lane,
Howrah, West Bengal- 711101
M: +91 8240280700, 9674943774
E: natadha74@gmail.com