(Excerpts from emails sent to
Natyakrishti on Kolikaler Buli
performed on 11/20/09 at Rockville
Civic Center in Maryland)
Nov. 21, 2009
It was an
amazing feat, truly a drama amongst
the chaos of practice. I am glad I
could witness this. Incredible
acting.........the passage of
acting and playacting transferred
quite well.
Jayashree-di-r
opoorbo acting. How she transforms
herself on stage. She truly becomes
one with the character. ageo
dekkhecchi ebar-o dekhlum.
Kudos to you
for putting everything together. A
new prodigy, a new child of yours
being born.
I am waiting
for many more to come.
Samita
Nov. 21, 2009
Jogo-da
We really
enjoyed the Kolokaler Buli a lot.
Mamata
Nov. 21, 2009
Dear
Jogobrata and Nityakrishti
This is to
let you know that Bratin, my sister
in law ( from Montreal )and I were
totally over whelmed by the
superior caliber performance of "Kolikaler
Buli" by you all. The direction,
the acting, the costume designing
and makeup, the audio/musical part,
the smooth coordination of various
complex situations, the clever
improvisations, were all so
superbly executed that we still
cannot get over the memorable
evening !!!! We sincerely hope that
we will witness more such level of
performance from you all. Although
we realize many many hours of
dedicated work by you all went into
this production. Thank you for your
efforts
Wishing you
all the very best.
Raka
Nov. 23, 2009
Jogabrata:
I am writing
this note to congratulate you and
the drama team for an outstanding
performance. Anima and I enjoyed it
thoroughly and felt that it was one
of the best theatrical presentation
we have seen in a long time. The
actors, sound effects, lighting,
and stage were nearly flawless.
Again, congratulations!
Regards.
Pradyot
Nov. 23, 2009
Dear Jogada,
Wanted to
forward you the E-mail from Gargi.
Once again, you had a successful
production of Kolikaler Buli. We
enjoyed it a lot.
Cheers.
Sanghamitra
Nov. 23, 2009
Thanks
again......but for you we wouldn't
have been able to enjoy yesterday's
excellent Natick ……superb direction
and acting. Please convey our
thanks to Jogabrata da for giving
us an evening to remember.
Gargi
Bhattacharjee
Nov. 22, 2009
Jogo Da,
Thank you for
giving us the pleasure of watching
such an excellent production. It
was the result of long dedication
and unending effort on your and
JayasreeDi's part and of course
very hard and dedicated work by the
entire Natyakrishti team.
Kudos to you
- excellent job - very very well
done. Will wait to see more such
productions in the future.
Utpal
Nov. 23, 2009
Yup... And
yes- I definitely enjoyed the show.
Jogo da ka jawab nahin. And the
music ... it was so appropriately
in tune. I hope I knew the music
director- I wanted to congratulate
the music director for doing such a
wonderful job.
Ishwar
Nov. 23, 2009
Hello Jogo,
I just wanted
to say how much I really enjoyed
the play. The strong direction and
the performance of all the actors
almost made the fact that I don't
understand Bengali very
insignificant. Congratulations on
your efforts. Your passion for
stage and drama surely showed
through. Wishing you all the best
in your future endeavors.
Regards,
Gurjeet
Nov 24, 2009
Hi Jogabrata
and Jayasree,
On the eve of
the Thanksgiving holidays, I want
to let you know that we are so
thankful to you
and everyone
in your group for the presentation
of such a wonderful and delightful
presentation
of Kolikaler
Buli. Life is all about moments.
Your program was such a moment that
comes rarely
in our lives.
it will remain forever with us as
such a memorable moment
It was not
only a drama that was finished in
100 minutes of presentation. It
gave us a platform
to think
about the influence of spirituality
and reality in our lives. That's
what Gita's lessons are
all about,
victory of good over evil as we see
everyday in our struggle of daily
living.
Please accept
our congratulations and greetings.
There are not enough adjectives in
the dictionary
to tell you,
how we feel about this
presentation. It was compelling,
captivating, charming, enchanting,
humorous,
cheerful, refreshing, and exquisite
entertainment.
Hope to see
you present programs like this in
the future.
Sincerely,
Pradip and
Kumkum
Nov 24, 2009
Dear Pradip
and Kumkum:
Thanks for
taking the time to compliment Jogo.
There is so much hard work and risk
is there in embarking on projects
like these that a few words of
encouragement is highly in order to
keep these cultural activities and
our senses alive.
You have of
course provided more than a few
words, and have crafted them
elegantly and sincerely. Coming
from you also means a lot to all of
us.
Regards,
Dhruba
Nov. 25, 2009
Dear
Jogabrata-Jayasree:
I feel
immensely proud of you as well as
each and every member of
Natyakrishti group for the stellar
performance you all have been
credited with by one and all who
witnessed the show. It is a pity we
missed it, but I am confident there
will be more to come as word
spreads around of this classic
presentation. We hope to be able to
attend the next one.
With love and
best wishes,
Meshomosai
Nov. 25, 2009
Dear
Jogabrata & Natyakrishti,
What can I
say that has not been said already
- Kolikaler Buli is one of the
best, if not the best, stage
productions I have ever seen
produced by an amateur group. Your
production could compete with the
very best professional productions.
I hope you will be able to take
this production on the road to
other Bengali Communities. At the
least, I hope you will have an
opportunity to present it at the
2011 NABC in front of a much larger
audience.
Congratulations!!!
An anonymous
viewer
Nov. 25, 2009
Jogabrata
You should be
a little more relaxed after such an
outstanding performance last week;
as always, we enjoyed very much "Kolikaler
Buli" that both of you have worked
so hard to present for the Bengali
community's enjoyment. You should
be truly proud of achieving such
high standard of excellence!
Warm regards,
Alok-da &
Bandana-di
Nov. 30, 2009
Dear Jogo da,
I would like
to take this opportunity of
Congratulating You and All the
Members of Natyakrishti for staging
this wonderful piece of performing
art!
From the very
beginning... the way the various
characters got merged into the Play
... some from outside the scope of
acting (e.g. the musician playing
the dhol... was called in and then
literally pushed into a character of
the play)... was very credible
effort. Another scene to comment
on...
the one, where
Kansha turns itself to Hitler... and
that too in front of the audience...
i.e. not behind closed screen or in
the green room!
This being a
satirical drama .. presented in a
"non-sequential" and disconnected
way .. leave plenty of scope for the
audience to arrive at their own
conclusions .. of the context and
message of the play. The Brechtian
style of 'loose alienation' was well
adopted in the Play... and there was
a "Play within the Play itself". The
way the characters switched from
"one role to the other" (i.e. the
Play within the Play concept)... was
done with very professional and
eloquent manner. Again, this leaves
ample input for the spectators to
arrive at their own conclusions
about the characters... and more
importantly... the message they
conveyed. The central character of
Adhikari (i.e. the 'sutradhar')...
portrayed well by Kalyan da...
reminds of the role played by
Dhritiman Chatterjee... in the
movie...
Akaler
Sandhane... which has a similar
context like here, i.e. there was a
cinema within the cinema itself...
Apart from ALL
the Actors and Actresses .. special
kudos to the Natyakrishti members
behind music direction, sound
effect, lighting arrangements, stage
designs, stage visuals and makeup.
Natyakrishti
has raised their "Standards" to a
distinct height!
Hoping to see
more of these type of Productions
from the team in the days to come.
Warm Regards,
Pradip & Rupsa
Dec. 3, 2009
Mr.
Majumdar,
I would like
to congratulate both you and your
group "Natyakrishti" on the success
of "Koli
Kaler
Buli". In my
humble opinion, everything about the
play, viz. selection of topic,
selection of venue, acoustics, stage
decoration, presentation and so on,
has been done with a degree of
thoroughness rarely seen in other
Indian cultural programs in
Maryland.
Koli
Kaler
Buli has effectively raised the
standard audiences will expect in
future, and this, in its own right,
is laudable.
I look forward
to seeing more presentations from
Natyakrishti, and I wish you and
your group success in all
future endeavors. My fiancée
Deboeeta's note of appreciation is
also attached herewith.
Sincerely,
Sourav
Dec. 5, 2009
Respected
Director Sir,
First I would
like to thank you for making such a
coherent hilarious adoption of "kalikalerr
buli', the
complete layout (natok
binyas) was
simply wonderful. The funny yet
practically relevant dialogues fell
in perfect place with present day
issues. The second extremely
significant aspect was bringing out
such a level of acting from amateur
actors...their performance was as
par with any of the professional
group theatre artists' performance I
had watched in Calcutta; special
kudos to Kangsha, Bakasur, and
Balaram/Vibek-2 for performing at
such a fantastic standard. During
the course of the performance, all
the participants' hard work and
complete dedication showed out, may
it be the music direction, singers
(including Saibal da singing 'kara r
ei
louho
kapat' and simultaneously
acting/dramatizing the song in its
correct rendition), or the
power-point presentations indicating
the evil's manipulation in form of
the world wars...the production, as
a whole, matched with that of the
professional ones in Kolkata, and
consequently, the standard bar for
performances in general has been
raised considerably higher for
Bengalees residing in
Maryland/Virginia/DC
area.
We certainly
look forward to watching more
productions from your excellent
troop in future. My thanks to
everyone in your group for bringing
in such a crisp yet hilarious
performance.
Deboeeta
