On Stage – Shakespeare in Bengal

Shakespeare on the Bengali stage premiered with a 1780 performance of Othello, and varied performances and adaptions continue today.

Early Theater

Figure 5

Othello prepares to kill Desdemona: Taraknath Palit as Othello, Tarasundari as Desdemona in a Bengali Othello: Star Theatre, Kolkata, 1919.

Figure 15

Kumud Sarkar as Banquo and the actress Kusumkumari as Fleance in the 1893 production of Macbeth, translated and directed by Girishchandra Ghosh, at Minerva Theatre, Kolkata.

Figure 16

A rare picture postcard of the legendary woman singer Gauhar Jan Tawaif (‘Miss Goher’) as Hamlet, probably in an Urdu adaptation for the Parsee theatre staged at the Alfred Theatre, Kolkata, December 1915.

Figure 25

Poster of Hariraj, an adaptation of Hamlet: Classic Theatre, Kolkata, 1897. The poster describes the play as ‘A Hindu Hamlet’, but ascribes its source to the Rajtarangini, a 12th-century Sanskrit history of Kashmir, where the play is set.

Figure 26

Amarendranath Dutt (Datta) as Hariraj (Hamlet) in Hariraj (1897), Classic Theatre, Kolkata.

Figure 27

Kunjalal Chakrabarti as Kulirak (Shylock) in Saudagar (The Merchant), a Bengali version of The Merchant of Venice, at Star Theatre, Kolkata. Saudagar opened in 1915 with the celebrated Amarendranath Dutt (Datta) in the role. After his death in 1916, Chakrabarti took over.

Figure 28

A production still from Kuhaki, a Bengali adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Star Theatre, Kolkata, 1920. The ass has been changed to a bull.

Contemporary Theater

Figure 17

Still from Rabindra Bharati Theatre Repertory’s Phagun rater gappo (2011), a Bengali version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The production incorporated folk songs and folk dance, with folk elements in the sets and costumes.

Figure 18

Still from Fall of a King, an adaptation of King Lear performed at the historic Jorasanko mansion of the Tagore family, Kolkata on March 18, 2015 by the theatre group OFTAS from the state of Assam.

Figure 19

Still from Nagma, a Bengali adaptation of Othello: Jadavpur University, January 2015.

Figure 20

Still from Salaam-e-Shakespeare, a Bengali adaptation of As You Like It, performed by the theatre group Poesis at Bolpur in West Bengal on March 11, 2015.

Figure 21

Rehearsal still from Swapnasandhani’s Bengali Macbeth (2012), with the director Kaushik Sen as Macbeth.

Figure 22

A collage of stills from Mumbai Nights, an adaptation of Twelfth Night directed by Bratya Basu: Minerva Theatre Repertory, November 2015. From the production brochure.

Figure 23

Soumitra Chattopadhyay as Lear in the Bengali Raja Lear, directed by Suman Mukhopadhyay: Minerva Theatre Repertory, 2010.

Figure 10

Chandan Sen as Prospero and Kharaj Mukhopadhyay as Ariel in Ramaprasad Banik’s Bengali stage production of The Tempest: Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata, 1996.