Samik Bindu’s STORY OF LORI Director: Mayukh Dutta

Playwright: Samik Bindu
Director: Mayukh Dutta
Group: Chetla Krishti Sansad, Kolkata
Language: Bengali
Duration: 1 hr 30 mins

The Play
The play opens with two cats ushering in a retro-future backdrop. Three notorious business tycoons monopolize the ‘intangible cultural heritage’ through diplomatic support of the greedy state-minister, by luring the Master Chef King, an indifferent, careless food aficionado. ‘Nerdy’, a pseudo-human-robot designs surveillance gadgets to track hapless commoners, daring their basic rights of singing lullabies and cooking food, which have now become red-listed. Public life is jeopardized with hungry, sleepless children and a helplessking in self-proclaimed exile. Ultimately the cats come to rescue by finding a special little girl. Together, they find the king and make him cook a unique recipe with powers to instil humane sanity in ‘Nerdy’ by deleting his robot-mode.

Director’s Note
The story is set in a fairy-tale-like background. The play symbolically depicts how crony capitalism is denying the basic rights of the people via monopolizing the natural resources of a country. The greedy corporates use state-of the-art technology to accomplish their mission. In the play three notorious businessmen monopolize two intangible cultural heritage of the people; bed-time folk-tale lullabies, ritually sung by the people for their children to make them fall asleep at night, and traditional recipes. Red-listing and commercialization of these basic rights, along with severe surveillance, results in sleepless nights, hungry, imprisoned offenders, and choked public life. Two cats find a little-girl and the king, a Master chef, to cook an ancient recipe which destroys the ‘villains’ strategies, finally restoring the situation to some extent.

The Director
Mayukh Dutta has performed in more than 40 plays ofChetla Krishti Sansad.He has worked with renowned directors of Bengal like Pinaki Guha, Raja Bhattacharyya, Manish Mitra, Tulika Das, Debesh Roychowdhury and many others.He has attended workshops of many eminent personalities like Goutam Halder, Anjan Deb and Feisal Alkazi.Story of Lori is his first directorial work in theatre.

The Playwright
Dr. Samik Bindu is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Zoology at Panchanan Barma University (Coochbehar, West Bengal).He is a member of Chetla Krishti Sansad and is associated with children’s theatre for last 30 years. He has acted in 15 plays produced by the Sansad and written four plays staged by it.

The Group
Chetla Krishti Sansad was established in 1985 for the welfare of children, and with the dream of making a social change by giving expression to the thoughts of down-trodden children through theatre. Till date it has staged more than 40 productions and has received rave reviews. Now, the group has extended to a large family; the ones who started their journey as child artists in the group have now grown up to mature theatre workers. In addition to children’s welfare, the group is now equipped with productions by adults. Although the group is run only by donation and meager financial support from the common people, without any Government or non-Government sponsorship, the determination and discipline of our theatre workers give us the hope to change the mode of life through theatre.

Cast& Credits
Bhije Biral: Partha Debnath
Biral Tapaswsi: Piali Samanta
Mr. Baron: Aritra Dey
Mr.Tycoon: Tanmay Banerjee
Mr.Magnate: Abhishek Dey
Mantri Charmagaj: Swarnendu Das
Raja: Adrija Basu
Adabata & Man 1: Chiranjeet Haldar
Jeera Bata & Man 2: Ayan Debnath
Mr.Nerdy & Sena 2: Arkoranjan Bhattacharya
Miss Info: Shubhannita Guha / Monomita Chaudhury
Special Child: Mrittika Chakraborty

Children 1: Tanirika Das
Children 2: Dibyatanu Dutta
Children 3: Aman Ghosh
Senapati: Sundarraj Roy
Radhuni & Man 3: Anirban Saha
Women 1: Pritha Biswas
Woman 2: Sayantika Dey
Woman 3: Srabana Chattopadhyay
Sena 1: Mayukh Dutta

Music: Subhadeep Sarkar & Aritra Dey
Set Design: Swarnendu Das
Stage set-up: Surojit Dey
Make-up: Bhanu Mitra
Light: Kalyan Ghosh
Costume: Piali Samanta
Props: Adrija Basu
Choreography: Sreya Das

Special thanks to Pinaki Guha, Samarjeet Dey, Sayantani Dey, Rwitobroto Mukherjee, Pushan Dasgupta, Anwesh Bhattacharya, Kaushik Pal, Arka Chakraborty, Debajyoti Bhattacharya, Tunak Banerjee

Playwright: Samik Bindu
Director: Mayukh Dutta