The Chairs, Nemesis captivate audience
Robab Rosan
As part of a ten-day annual theatre festival, the theatre and music department of Dhaka University staged ‘The Chairs’ of Eugene Ionesco and ‘Nemesis’ of Nurul Momen at the university’s Teacher-Student Centre on November 21.
As in the previous productions, the audience enjoyed both the plays and lauded the performers, directors, set designers and the people who worked behind the success of the plays.
The world renowned Romanian-French playwright Eugene Ionesco’s play ‘The Chairs’ was translated by the eminent playwright Sayeed Ahmad and directed by Nahid Jahan.
‘The Chairs’ is one of the most popular plays of Ionesco. It was staged first on April 22, 1952 in Paris, ‘The Chairs’ was only the third of Ionesco’s plays to be produced. At the time, Ionesco was still a struggling playwright.
In the play, an elderly couple sets up chairs and greets invisible guests who have come to hear the Old Man’s message to the world. The message is left in the hands of an Orator after the couple commits suicide, but he is deaf-mute and cannot relay it.
In the programme for the original production, Ionesco writes, ‘As the world is incomprehensible to me, I am waiting for someone to explain it.’ As the idea of a theatre of the absurd—a literary form that explored the futility of human existence—evolved, ‘The Chairs’ came to be seen as a seminal example of the genre, highlighting the loneliness and futility of human existence.
It was rather difficult to work with ‘The Chairs’, which is still regularly performed worldwide. Farhana Khanam and Nusrat Farhana Lisa skilfully performed the roles of the 95-year old Old Man and 94-year old Old Woman respectively. With their lively performance of the elderly people, Khanam and Lisa touched the audience and made them feel the pathos of their loneliness. Syed Mamun Reza performed the role of Orator.
Rehnuma Khanam deserves special mention for set designing and also the director of the play Nahid Jahan for lighting and music; Farhana Khanam and Nusrat Farhana Lisa jointly for costume.
Nemesis
The Chairs’ was followed by the show of Nurul Momen’s ‘Nemesis’. The play, directed by Babul Akhter presented the death of a poor young schoolmaster Surjit Nandi who had married the daughter of a dishonest businessman. After the marriage, Nandi gets involvd in smuggling for earning money to save his wife from the grips of his father-in-law. Nandi suffers from the qualms of conscience but cannot save himself from the hands of Nemesis, the goddess of revenge.
Faridul Islam Fardin performed the role of Nandi of the one person acted play. His performance could have been improved. But Fardin’s set design and lighting jointly with Mohammad Babul Aktar was excellent. Subarna Huda’s music successfully created the ambience of the tragedy.
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