Mukhoshtantra, a pastiche reinterpretation of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is the fourth production of Kolahal and marks the return of actor and social activist Nigel Akkara on stage after seven years.
This adaptation by director Prajna Dutta is pickled with periodic action scapes and incorporates multifarious folk and martial dialectics on stage. On one side we see the use of Bengali martial folk forms like Chchau and Raebeshi, on the other side we see usage of South Indian marital forms like Kalari and Silambam pickled with the Filipino Art of Kali and the Maori art of Haka. Light design for this play has been planned by Kalyan Ghosh while the periodic costumes have been done by Sajsajja and sound design by Bandan Mishra.
The cast and crew of the play is largely from Kolahal and has Nigel playing the lead role of Macbeth, actress Ashmita Mukherjee playing Lady Macbeth, poet and actor Debasish Sarkar plays Duncan and the role of Malcolm is portrayed by Prajna. Though the characters are from the bard’s famous play, however they are trapped in a new chronotope that essays their past and present as they don the fair in the foul and foul in the fair portraying the tale of their life. As the bard had said, “life is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing…” and “nothing is but what is not?”
This play uses both facts from history and fiction from the bard’s play as a canvas to paint a new postmodern pastiche caught between primitive innocence and modern decadence. On invitation from the cultural group Anubhab, the play is all set to premiere at Rabindra Mancha, Chittaranjan on 4 April.
