Veteran theatre maker Sunil Shanbag will bring to the Mumbai stage a rare 52-year-old Bengali political drama written by late actor and playwright, Utpal Dutt
Sunil Shanbag in discussion with the actors
The stage is a mirror to society, they say. Take Utpal Dutt’s 1972 play, Barricade, for instance. Set in 1933 Germany, the famed inter-war period that shaped the future for Germany and Europe in the years to follow, the play drew parallels between the Third Reich and the tumultuous Emergency in India. Today, when veteran theatre maker Sunil Shanbag debuts his Hindi adaptation of the play, city audiences will have a chance to face the mirror again, and gauge if things are closer to home than they appear.
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Utpal Dutt (in white) in Gol Maal (1979). Pic courtesy/Youtube
While Dutt is best known for his comedic performances in films like Gol Maal (1979), he was one of India’s foremost theatrical artistes who founded the Little Theatre Group in Bengal in 1949, and staged plays by Shakespeare and Bertolt Brecht. “The first time I watched Utpal Dutt’s Kallol and Tiner Talowar as a teenager in the mid-1970s, I understood very little,” Shanbag admits. Thankfully, Dutt’s stage told a story in itself. “I was blown away by the spectacular nature of the production,” Shanbag recalls. Much later in 2022, following a decorated career in theatre, Shanbag would finally rediscover what he had missed. “When I read the English translation, I was taken aback. His political awareness, and ability to modernise the story to suit audiences was ahead of his time,” he shares.
Moments from a rehearsal of the play, Barricade at the Juhu venue. PICS COURTESY/RAJ LALWANI
Barricade is centred on a clash of ideologies between conflicting characters — a righteous journalist, an apolitical doctor, a law-abiding judge and Nazi officers. Shanbag points out, “Language was already detached from the story that is set in Germany and originally written in Bengali. Usually, there is a cultural specificity that language plays into. But the themes of Barricade are universal, and each translation has managed to retain its essence.”
This essence lies partly in the socio-political background of the story. “The Second World War was more complex than you’d imagine. The growing discontentment among the German population, the burning of books by the Nazis in Berlin that began in 1933, and an economic crisis eventually led to the crisis. The play explores how individuals found themselves choosing sides amidst the drama. I see something similar unfolding on the global stage today,” he points out. Although not as grand as Dutt’s productions, Shanbag will recreate the atmosphere using sound design, a 12-member cast, and archival footage from 20th century Germany.
However, reviving the original play might entail a bigger responsibility than retelling a story. Barricade’s history is coloured by the backlash and bans that followed it during the turbulent decade of the ’70s. Have things changed, we wonder? “There’s no denying that it’s still a difficult time. We inherently self-censor ourselves to an extent in our creative decisions, dictated by our fears and anxieties. But that’s inevitable. The fact that we are presenting Barricade says something about our spirit,” he shares.
For Shanbag, there’s no such thing as non-political art. “A few decades ago, the term political meant something to do with the State and its people. Today, we have come to realise that there’s politics in love, gender, in relationships and even within ourselves. Whatever your story, if you step back and look at the bigger picture, you’ll experience the inherent politics in it,” he signs off.
AGE GROUP 16 years and above
ON August 23, 5 pm; August 24 and 25, 5 pm and 8 pm
AT Prithvi Theatre, Janki Kutir, Juhu.
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