Review of "The Blooming Orchard-Ek Sunehra Bageecha" by Kay S

The Blooming Orchard-Ek Sunehra Bageecha

A Forum Three Production directed by Ranjon Ghoshal

  

Life has always been about living, achieving, usurping, hoarding and all the vices for most of us in the oh-so! materialistic world.  Most of us fail to even acknowledge the fact that today is a fact and tomorrow is only an opinion, for each one of us can only go to sleep with the hope that we shall wake up tomorrow to a better world or a better day.  Having said this, a bit of introspection on how we live, what we do, and the effect we have on people and the world around us, I believe, can make us better human beings in the long run.  I read somewhere and have quoted it many a times that “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time,” a quote by Thomas Merton, which summarizes the kind of impact theatre and all forms of fine art can have in our lives. As I have mentioned in a previous blog of mine regarding my rendezvous of art & theatre, it began with my association with Mr. Zafer Mohiuddin, a renowned theatre personality.  In this journey with him, I have had the opportunity to get to know many theatre personalities and watch some amazing plays, one of them being, “The Blooming Orchard,” an amazing introspective play directed by the one and only, Ranjon Ghoshal.

This is one of the most amazing plays I have seen in recent times for it had a pleasant mixture of many elements such as comedy, greed, honesty, relationships, parenting, materialism, paranormal, and the works.  The play is basically one that is a battle between the weak against wicked and honesty against greed.  For one play to have had so many emotions or characteristics entwined in itself and then drive a message was stupendous and awe-inspiring indeed.  I happened to see the Hindi version of this play and was much pleasantly surprised during curtain call that the actors who portrayed the various characters were all very young actors who were in a workshop with Mr. Ghoshal and worked on their characters themselves and only then were allowed to stage this play, which makes it already a must-watch.

A play based on the Bengali story written by Manoj Mitra, “Sajano Bagan,” which has been translated by Ranjon Ghoshal and Sangeeta Ghoshal is presented as, The Blooming Orchard in English and Ek Sunehra Bageecha in Hindi.  The story revolves around Bancha Kapali, a 95-year-old fruit farmer played by Sheetal Sahu who he is in mid 20s and a greedy land shark played Sagnik Sinha who wants to take over the farmer’s land at any cost.  The story unveils itself beautifully as though liquid chocolate flowing down your throat at times tickling you with the best of unexpected laughter and witty dialogues.  The old man’s grandson, played by Abhinav Vishwanathan, who being a legal heir to the land is also a good-for-nothing lad who comes in newly married after having been thrown out earlier and saves the old farmer from losing his land albeit with the help of his new bride, who does everything to keep the old farmer from dying.  As the saying goes, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave!,” the landlord gets into a web of his own when he assuming that the old man will die in a few months draws up an agreement to pay the farmer a pension every month until he dies in return for the old man leaving the farm to him to which the old man who is way too attached to his land agrees with.  This creates a great tragedy and comedy with all characters concerned. The best part is also that there is a ghost of the landlord’s father at play weaving a paranormal twist to this already great comedy.  The beautiful and witty way of presentation of this play will tug at your conscience at regular intervals and inspire you to cherish the moments you have in life and remain ethical for nothing is permanent.  The play goes to prove that point that greed only leads to ruin.  I do not want to ruin the surprise by telling the whole story, so why don't you go watch it as you read this piece.  It is indeed a must watch for everyone worth his/her salt in this world for you will carry back a really good feeling that you watched an amazing show on stage.  They say that you always save the best for the last and it is the show’s ending before curtain call that was the icing on the cake with cherry on the top.

I write congratulating the entire Forum Three team for pulling off one of the most beautiful and inspiring plays on stage.  Amazing backstage support, lighting, sound, costumes, make-up, music, video-mixing along with brilliant direction and translation.  Overall, this is a must-watch play for all and sundry and you are indeed missing something if you have not seen it.  I wish all of you at Forum Three all the very best for your upcoming shows and our best wishes for all your endeavors.  Keep making great plays and keep rocking the stage.  In the words of Jerzy Kosinski, “The principle of true art is not to portray, but to evoke!”  I must say you did this by evoking so many emotions within the audience who could not stop being awed, tickled into peals of laughter, and enjoying the entire show.  More than this you created such a great show to evoke me to present this gift of a review for this play.  Great job!!!!!

“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life!” - Pablo Picasso

DIRECTOR:    Ranjon Ghoshal

ACTORS:        Sagnik Sinha, Aritra Biswas, Sheetal Sahu, Vishnu Mohan, Harshal Dwivedi, Anusri Menon, Neha Mohanty, Reetesh Ranjan, Prateek Gupta, Suman Chakraborty, Abhinav Vishwanathan, Gitanjali Dh"up Singh.

LIGHTING:     Kousar Nawaz Afgan

Kay S is the author of "Unfinished - A Woman's Tryst with Destiny"