Naatak's Patol Babu Film Star and Other Plays - A critical review

I went to see Naatak's Patol Babu Filmstar and other plays this past Saturday. These plays were adapted from Satyajit Ray's short stories by Kamala subramanian. Until I came to hear about the Naatak play, I was not aware that Satyajit Ray was also a short story writer. The stories portrayed were Mr. Eccentric, Bhuto, Pikoo's Diary, and Patol Babu Filmstar. The production overall was well executed. It started on time and ended on time. The sets were very good. The stories are supposedly set in the seventies in presumably, Kolkota. The costumes were carefully chosen to transport the audience back to that era. Mr. Eccentric is a thriller about an old man man obsessed with collecting objects that have morbid histories associated with death. Eccentric is the name given to him by his neighbors who find his obsession with seemingly random and useless objects eccentric. He his portrayed walking around the streets with a walking stick, looking for objects to add to his collection, Mr. Eccentric has the ability to see the scene of death whenever he looks at an object in his collection. He meticulously documents each item in his diary. The play was enagaging right up to the finish and the actors executed well. However, the last scene, which is the punchline, if you will, of the story, was a bit odd I thought. It shows Mr. Eccentric describing his latest acquisition to a visitor - a ring belonging to a man who committed a murder. Mr. Eccentric is telling the story of how he had to use force to get this ring from the murderer the previous day. As his visitor, visibly
shocked, asks what he means by "force", Eccentric thrusts his walking stick into the visitor's hands saying that he can no longer bear to have this with him because of what he sees when he looks at the stick. The visitor's hands are covered with blood and the play ends with a rather loud scream. I have not read the original story, and do not know how it ends. But why would someone not wipe the blood off the stick after committing a heinous act? Even if he forgot or didn't care to wipe it off, would the blood not have dried up
considering that the act was committed the previous day? And the scream was completely uncalled for - if the play had ended with Eccentric simply handing the stick to his shocked visitor, it would have have had more impact in my opinion.

The second play, Bhuto belongs to the fantasy genre. It depicts the story of a young man who is passionate about learning ventriloquism from the reigning queen of ventriloquism, Anandita. All attempts by the young man to persuade Anandita to teach him the art are spurned. Finally, he gets a book and teaches himself. He gets an idea from the book to use a puppet as a prop. He and his friend craft an idea to make a puppet that looks like Anandita and name it Bhuto. He becomes a huge hit with the crowds and Anandita loses her popularity. Threatened, she confornts him and says that while she respects him for his perseverence, she does not approve his impertinence. After this confrontation, strange things start happening - Bhuto appears to start having an existence of her own. One night, the young man hears coughing and realizes that it is Bhuto. Frightened he casts Bhuto away, but she comes back. At 3:00 am, he is awakened by a howl and we see Bhuto make some frenzied movements of her own. The play ends with the young man's friend rushing in to tell him about the death of Anandita. The man nods and says he knows and he also what time it happened. They then look at Bhuto in horror. I was totally confused after this play. I thought there were some logical lapses. The first one which was quite confusing is when the young man and his friend get the idea to make a puppet. The scene shows a Chowkidar tear down a picture of Anandita. The pair look at the picture, and get this, the picture of Anandita faces the audience. I was wondering how they could possibly have a Eureka moment when looking at a blank paper (logically the opposite face of the paper should have been blank if it was stuck to the wall). The second was the ending - why did Anandita die? She had lost her livelihood. So she could have killed her opponent instead. It is quite clear that Bhuto is possessed by her spirit. But what was completely lost on me
was why she had to die to do that given that there were scenes that show Bhuto becoming possessed when she's alive anyways. The aha moment is supposed to be the last scene when the young man and his friend look at Bhuto and realize what has happened - but it was certainly not aha for me. The script was not tight enough and I know at least a few people who were confused by the ending as well.

The third play, Pikoo's diary is about a young boy Pikoo who has become scarred for life because of an extra-marital affair his mother had when he was little. The play is executed in flash back mode. Pikoo's dad has just found out that his wife is having an affair. Pikoo has a day off from school despite which his mom agrees to see her lover. Pikoo's grandfather, an invalid with coronary thrombosis, lives with them. Pikoo informs the old man about a fight he overheard his parents having the previous night. The scene comes off as being a bit comic with Pikoo talking about the fight, coronary thrombosis, heart attacks etc. The grandfather shows Pikoo a bell that he will ring if he gets a heart attack so Pikoo can come to his aid. Pikoo, when rushing out of his granddad's room, throws the switch to the bell out of the old man's reach. It apprears that Pikoo knows her lover quite well - he refers to him as uncle. The uncle comes to his house with a box of color pencils for Pikoo. His mom asks Pikoo to go to the garden and not come into the house till he draws and colors every flower he can find in the garden. Then she and her lover go to bed. In the meantime, Pikoo's drawing his flowers and there is a scene in the middle when his mother starts crying because he is in the sun. Her lover is upset with her because of her distraction and leaves. Pikoo comes into the house and hears his mother crying. He goes to his mother's room but she dismisses him with a slap. He comes down to talk to
his grandfather, only to find him dead. He realizes that the switch is far away from the old man's reach and is overcome with grief. This was another confusing play. I did not get the point at all. Is the point Pikoo is messed up because his mother had an affair? If so, how did he learn that his mother had an affair? The play does not address this at all. Or was the point Pikoo is messed up beacuse he feels responsible for his grandfather's death? If this is the case, then there is no connection between the first scene of the play that shows an adult Pikoo confronting his wife and suspecting her of adultery and the rest of the story.

The last play was Patol Babu Filmstar. This was the play that stole the show. A comedy with a fantastic script and fantastic acting by everyone, it is the story of Patol Babu, an aging thespian who aspires to revive his acting career. He is offered a role in a movie, but the challenge is that he has only one word to say - oh. The story is a hilarious account of how Patol Babu tries to convince himself and his wife that even to say oh can be challenging. There are many emotions associated with the word and Hareesh Agastya had the crowd laughing with his Bengali babu accent and his various oh intonations. Overall, a highly crowd pleasing and happy play that left everyone feeling good.
This production inspired me to look around for Ray's short stories and give them a read. I really need to figure out what Bhuto and Pikoo's diary are about.