Anno Theatre stages Hamlet. — Snigdha Zaman

Two subsequent shows of William Shakespeare’s famous play Hamlet drew a remarkable number of audiences on Thursday at the main hall of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy.   
Anno Theatre from Kolkata, India staged the play as part of the six-day theatre festival organised by Padatik Natya Sansad (TSC) in memory of late president of the organisation Syed Badruddin Hossain. The first was open for the theatre activists at the afternoon while the second show was staged for the general people at 7:15pm.
Directed by Bibhash Chakrabarty, the tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, is set in the Kingdom of Denmark. To portray the mediaeval period in Denmark, the set was decorated with woods and metals and succeeded in creating the ambience. The play dramatizes the revenge Prince Hamlet exacts on his uncle Claudius for murdering the prince’s father King Hamlet, and then succeeding to the throne and taking as his wife Gertrude, the old king's widow and prince Hamlet's mother. The powerful performances of the actors engaged the audience throughout the play. Especially, while Hamlet gets killed, the audience becomes really moved. On the other hand, comic dialogues of the grave digger, played by Komol Chakraborty, delighted the hall full of audiences.  Moreover, relevant lighting and sound designing also contributed to the success of the play.
About the play, Anno Theatre artiste Goutam Dey who played the role of Claudious, told New Age, ‘Acting in Shakespeare’s characters like Claudious is very challenging as the characters deal with grand themes like war, dignity, royal conspiracies and much more and also the characters generally deliver elaborate dialogues which are often absent in our local theatres.’