A tribute to Tagore on his death anniversary.
Forum – Three ; Alliance francaise du bengale & Culture Monks are truly delighted to invite you to a musical production featuring founder members of Mohiner Ghoraguli on August 8, 2018 at 7 :30 pm.
Genre: Drama (An English play)
Language: English
Title of the play: Crisis of Civilisation – A Musical
Production by: FORUM-THREE
Written & Directed by: Ranjon Ghoshal
Length: 90 minutes
Date ; August 8, 2018 (Wednesday)
Time : 7 : 30 pm
Seats are limited, hence make your booking early through sms or whatsapp by typing ‘Civ’ to 8697919308.
We from Forum – Three and Culture Monks seek you support through donations of Rs. 200 per head to make this evening possible.
Kindly make the donation by clicking on this link : https://imjo.in/dmWCHJ
Synopsis of the play:
In Rabindranath Tagore’s last speech before death, Crisis of Civilisation, he summarized his take on what was the real crisis the world was facing: Nationalism and its various nefarious avatars.
Tracing the path of Tagore’s political life, this is a play involving acting, narration and his own musical work. A bio-pic of a kind.
Written and directed by Ranjon Ghoshal.
Cast: Vishnu Mohan, Yeshwanth Sathu, Ranjon Ghoshal
Musicians: Palashree Roy, Aritra Biswas, Riddhita Chatterjee and others.
Featuring special appearance by : Abhraham Mazumder & Pradip Chattopadhyay.
Production controller: Sanjukta Deb with Sanjay AR
Technical Director: Shekhar Sanyal
Playwright & Director: Ranjon Ghoshal
Review of Crisis of Civilization
Crisis of Civilization: from Rabindranath Thakur to Ranjon Ghoshal
Alam Khorshed
During the closing days of last year, Chittagong experienced the vigorous presence of a robust cultural icon from India, namely, Ranjon Ghoshal, accompanied by his life-partner Sangeeta Ghoshal, an acclaimed Painter by her own right. For the music-lovers the name Ranjon Ghoshal immediately rings a bell, that of Mohiner Ghoraguli, first indigenous rock band of India, of which he was a founder member. Truly a renaissance person, Ranjon Ghoshal, an Electrical Engineer by training, is also a writer, translator, singer, song-writer, actor and playwright, who runs an advertising firm called Mareech in Bangalore for his livelihood and a theater group called Forum Three for his creative living.
He was commissioned by the Jagriti Theatre of Bangalore to write and perform a play on Tagore initially to be staged at the Bloomsbury Theatre of London as a tribute to the poet’s sesquicentennial, the outcome of which was a one-man theatrical performance called Crisis of civilization: a journey with Tagore, based on the famous speech by him delivered on his last birthday in the year of 1941. The play was directed by Jagdish Raja, a veteran thespian of the Artistes’ Repertory Theatre (now Jagriti Theatre) and was first performed in his own theater space called Jagriti in May, 2011 to coincide with the poet’s 150th birthday, featuring the playwright Ranjon Ghoshal himself as the sole actor/singer. After that it toured in different cities of USA and Canada with much popular applause and ovation. Later on he decided to bring the Play to his ancestral homeland Bangladesh even before doing any show in Kolkata where he was born and brought up as an artist.
At this point he, a long-time close acquaintance of mine, approached me with this rather exciting proposal and I didn’t hesitate for a moment to grab this opportunity of presenting this very vibrant and colourful personality named Ranjon Ghoshal along with his equally fascinating theatrical creation on Tagore to the Chittagong audience. The source of my courage and confidence was the assurance of the moral and material support of Dr. Samuel Berthet, the young and energetic helmsman of the Alliance Francaise, Chittagong, and a genuine Tagore-aficionado himself, who I knew would always be beside me in materializing this dream-project.
The rest is already part of the history. He came, like a whirlwind, and mesmerized us all with the electrifying force of his towering personality, with his unassuming yet enchanting erudition, his grandiose stage performance, his exuberant eloquence and a unique interpretation and representation of the great Rabindranath. He performed the original English version of the play on the 17th December in the cute and cozy auditorium of the Alliance Francaise completely packed with the Tagore-lovers of the town followed by an equally powerful performance in Bangla in the Shilpakala Academy auditorium to the utter delight of all present.
He played the role of Tagore himself quite befittingly wearing the dense and flowing beard matched by an ankle-long, earth-colour robe especially designed by Sangeeta Ghoshal, the producer and the projectionist of the play, creating an almost complete reincarnation of Tagore himself. Alongside playing the central role of the bard, a narrator and several other different characters of Tagore’s literature, he performed ten of his songs live on stage with much verve and gusto presenting a whole new interpretation of the poet’s music. Intelligent and innovative use of the multimedia technology on stage was another high point of the play. Overall, the play proved to be an effective vehicle for both entertainment and education just as its fabulous creator, whose very presence in the cultural arena of Chittagong was an unending source of pure joy and inspiration.
(Published in Alliance Fancaise de Chittagong Reviews< January, 2012)
This program is supported by Iris Home Fragrances.
Culture Monks 