Venkat Raman
Auckland, November 11, 2023
When Oscar Wilde wrote The Canterville Ghost in 1887, he would have not known that it would be adapted it would be adapted in Bengali by Sharmila Matira more than 125 years later and that ten years thereafter, it would be brought to the stage in Auckland by Swastika Ganguly.
The Canterville Ghost
The Canterville Ghost is the story of an American family that moved to a castle haunted by the ghost of a dead English nobleman, who killed his wife and was then walled in and starved to death by his wife’s brothers. It has been adapted for the stage and screen several times.
The American Minister to the Court of St James’s, Hiram B Otis and his family move into Canterville Chase, an English country house, despite warnings from Lord Canterville that the house is haunted. Mr Otis says that he will take the furniture as well as the ghost at valuation.
The Otis family includes Mr and Mrs Otis, their eldest son Washington, their daughter Virginia and the Otis twins. At first, none of the Otis family believes in ghosts but shortly after they move in, none of them can deny the presence of Sir Simon de Canterville.
Mrs Otis notices a mysterious bloodstain on the floor and comments, “She does not at all care for bloodstains in the living room.” Mrs Umney, the housekeeper, tells her that the bloodstain is evidence of the ghost and cannot be removed. Washington Otis, the eldest son, suggests that the stain would be removed with Pinkerton’s Champion Stain Remover and Paragon Detergent. When the ghost makes his first appearance, Mr Otis promptly gets out of bed and pragmatically offers the ghost Tammany Rising Sun Lubricator to oil his chains. Angrily, the ghost throws the bottle and runs into the corridor.
Refresher
Nandan brings forth two-day Bengali festivities marking Durga Pooja
Bhuni Babu from West Bengal
Called, ‘Bhunibabur Chandni,’ the Bengali version of the play was staged by Nandan New Zealand on October 22 at the Blockhouse Bay Community Centre in Blockhouse Bay, Auckland.
“The adaptation suits the socio-cultural aspects of India. As the festive mood was set, I was wondering how a ghost story served with real-life ambience and music would be received by our community. The idea sounded too good to be true but my team and anxiously waited for the audience’s response to our Thumris (vocal genre) and Ghazals on the first night of the play at the ancient mansion known as ‘Bhuni Babur Chandni. We were not disappointed,” Ms Ganguly said.
She said that the bleakness of the society today was suffocating.
“There is neither hope nor solution to the prevalent atrocities in the world. It made me realise that we needed to tell a story, which serves up as a timely lesson for all of us; a play that has the right amount of humour and solemnity,” Ms Ganguly said.
Bhuni Babu (played by Jyoti Nair and Ajoy Duffadar) is a mighty artiste and singer of yore, who is short-tempered and cruel, but a fine connoisseur of food, women, and music. But soon he also finds himself as a murderer. Locked up in a room of his own mansion for his misdeeds, he lies undead and awake, not to forget, hungry for more than a century, and waits for his redemption.
Along with his colourful make-up artist, Idu Mondol (played by Swastika Ganguly), he scares away anybody who visits his bungalow. One day, he realises that none of his tricks works on the family members of a block development officer (played by Anirban Datta) who recently moved into his mansion. Instead, he is heckled, harassed and laughed at all the time.
Anuprerona (played by Nivedita Kar Saha), the teenage daughter of the officer, is the only person empathetic towards the ghosts and redeems the souls of Bhuni Babu and his makeup artist Idu. An avid book reader, she maintains all her personal accounts in a diary, which bears witness to Bhuni Babu’s tale, to be found 20 years later.
The Credits
Other important characters were played by Tulika Duffadar, Taposh Saha, Sandeep Banerjee, Swastika Banerjee, Shubashish Chakraborty, Amartya Sen, Sohini Bhattacharya and Jayeeta Sharma.
“Initially, I was thinking of doing plays which were a bit different in mood, but as I started dwelling on the themes of Wilde’s text, I realised that it is only love that transcends, forgives and redeems this life, and we need to relearn this dictum today,” Ms Ganguly said.
She and Anirban designed the sets and lights have been designed by Swastika and Anirban.
Others involved in the production were Sunita, Abhishek, Sanjeev, Hridjit, Sounak, Bhuni Babu, Idu, Nivedita, Aditya, Jayeeta, Sangita and Krishnendu.
-With reporting by Swastika Ganguly, Nandan New Zealand
