Forced and exaggerated: A scene from Raktakarabi (Picture by Sanat K. Sinha)

This is symbolic and Gangopadhyay seems to be drawing an interesting parallel. Almost all of CBO’s actors are visually-challenged, but none of the characters in the play are. But the ‘physical’ darkness of the actors’ blindness is the ‘moral’ darkness of the play’s characters.

From its inception in 1996, CBO has celebrated in subtle ways, through theatre, the triumph of hope over hopeless handicap. Gangopadhyay no doubt chooses Tagore’s play of hope to counteract existential hopelessness. And, to counteract it, it must first be enacted.

Unfortunately, however, the performance does not really stir. Dialogues are delivered often without conviction and the actors don’t always seem to be in emotional identification with their characters. There are exceptions, like Gangopadhyay himself, who plays the non-conformist idealist believably and sings beautifully. But Nandini, whose sunshine-spreading personality is supposed to usher in the real ray of hope, is a little over-the-top. What is meant to be her spontaneous cheerfulness comes across as forced and exaggerated. Perhaps the problem was that the play was meant to be performed on a much larger stage than that of Sujata Sadan. But then the CBO members, by their own admission, would, as Gangopadhayay put it, “like to be judged in terms of art”. Not handicap.

For 13 years Swapno Shandhani has been chasing dreams ? of a better world ? through theatre. Their anniversary celebration included staging Bhalo Rakshaser Galpo (Sujata Sadan, May 28) based on Jaya Mitra’s children’s story ? an allegorical tale about resisting destructive consumerist forces with love and nature. Director Kaushik Sen dramatises skilfully.

A delightfully dream-like pastoral set with colourful costumes and props depicting flowers and fruits, rivers and rocks, bugs and beetles is transformed within moments into nightmarish grey-black factory scenes strewn with smoke-bellowing, soot-covered, petrol-flavoured, twisted-metal machines. Add to that an assorted cast comprising children and adults, playing anything from a cow to a can of petrol. What stops the production from being out-and-out entertaining is a loose and unstructured plot and hints of overacting. But Sen’s portrayal of the greedy Shob Chai Daitya is captivating.