At the invitation of one of my actor friends – Dilip Baruah, I have had the privilege of being among the audience present at the Rabindra Bhawan auditorium, Guwahati to enjoy the play Prem Aru Prem, mounted by Asian Views in remembrance of eminent litterateur Padma Bhushan Chandra Prasad Saikia on August 29 and 30.

The play is an Assamese adaptation, made by noted journalist Hridayananda Gogoi, of a celebrated play titled She Stoops to Conquer by playwright Oliver Goldsmith. There is very little scope to speak about the original play after its traverse through centuries to receive wide acclaim from connoisseurs of theatre. However, in making the adaptation, there appears to have been some need for more authenticity in respect of the character Satyen Chaliha, but the audience in the auditorium was not seen or heard to have raised any eyebrows in this regard.

With the inherent humour and human fallibility running through the play, it was an enjoyable production which kept the audience glued to their seats. I have a feeling that Oliver Goldsmith was inspired by Shakespeare to create this play.

Coming to the mounting of the play, it was felt at the beginning that the music was excruciatingly loud, drowning the off-stage voice narrating the theme of the play. This might have been a lapse on the part of the sound system operator; otherwise, the music in the play never came in the way of the presentation and had a soothing effect, enhancing the effect of the play. The introduction of the artistes at the beginning of the play was not a novel innovation as it was a device that had been adopted in the seventies.

The play was directed by Abinash Sarma, whose name is well-known in the theatre circle of the region, enjoying the reputation of a master artiste. In the play, the stagecraft was attractive and all the props were utilised with felicity by the director. Nevertheless, one question that came to my mind is whether an aristocratic household of yore in a rural area could possibly have a split level living room with raised platforms here and there, and balustraded stairways for moving to the interior of the house. I would like to request the director to look into this aspect to see if I am being excessively critical. Moreover, on a few occasions, it struck me that the artistes had mixed up the entrance and exit routes.

The presentation of the play was undoubtedly enjoyable and Zerifa Wahid’s name deserves mention here. Without questioning her acting acumen, I feel that it is Abinash Sarma whose tutelage has been able to extract such a good performance from her. Dr Chinmoy Chakraborty is seen to have grown from strength to strength and stood out well in the play with impressive acting in each scene and more particularly, in his scene with Mrs. Chaliha. His delivery of sarcastic dialogues is praiseworthy. Bornali Pujari seemed to me to be overtly exuberant at times, and a somewhat scaled down performance would have, to my mind, been more appreciable. Mihirjyoti Baruah appeared to me to be a mature artiste, but his utterance of “Ha Ha Ha” very frequently did not appear to go down well, as it could not make any telling impact on the audience, even though this might have been done with the purpose of inserting some humour into the character. But it appeared to be a somewhat forced imposition. However, in the last scene, laughter was effectively added to close the play. Ratul Das as Dhiraj was adequately cast, but his movements on the stage appeared to me to be more than what was necessary and his body language in delivering dialogues also seemed to be a conscious effort rather than a spontaneous one. Dilip Baruah as Rai Bahadur was felt to be slightly lacking in authenticity. There was scope for improvement of his portrayal of character realistically, with some amount of improvement in his English diction. Himangshu Prashad Das in the opening scene seemed to be having some problem with his diction, but as the play progressed, he became a vivacious performer. Anamika Bordoloi Baruah portrayed her character well and the director’s presence could be perceived in her performance. The rest of the cast was also judiciously selected.

Throughout the play, the director was present very visibly in all the aspects of the presentation. The director carefully decided whether the song and dance scene was a requirement necessitated by the play itself, even if it carried the audience away to have a taste of the well sung song and the dance performed by the actors. A look into the title of the play Prem Aru Prem brought to my mind the idea that a title more befitting to the original play could have been chosen by Hridayananda Gogoi.

While paying homage to the memory of the great litterateur Padma Bhushan Chandra Prasad Saikia, I enjoyed the play and am only expressing my thoughts about the presentation without any malice towards anybody. Congratulations to all concerned for the presentation of an enjoyable play.

Dr Roman Sarmah