Garia Krishti’s love affair with Bengali novels continues — after successfully dramatizing Tungabhadrar Teerey and Kalpurush, their latest offering is Buddhadeb Guha’s Madhukori. As before, leading from the front, Sitangshu Khatua dons multiple hats for the production, that of adaptor, director and lead actor.

As adaptor, Khatua foregrounds his predilection for fidelity to the source text. The plus side to this approach is that the play accommodates the rather sprawling novel almost in its entirety, with successive scenes rendering sequential slices of the narrative in a standard mode of enactment. However, when Khatua uses the text as a launch pad (and not merely as a fixed anchoring site) to be theatrically exploratory, the play becomes incrementally engaging, as in the opening hunting scene and the pre-interval scene that presents a glimpse of the protagonist’s mind. Theatrical moments such as these best exemplify the most exciting aspects of the transformational journey from page to stage, and one wishes that Madhukori had more such moments.

As in the novel, characters dominate the mise en scène of Madhukori, with the narrative pivoting around the protagonist, Prithu, essayed by Khatua. While Khatua etches out Prithu’s head-in-the-air romanticism with marked sensitivity, the rugged intensity required to project Prithu’s torment and frustration is found wanting. Rokeya Roy as Rusha is reasonably competent, especially when performing against Khatua, occasionally allowing the vulnerability of her character to seep through the frontage of resentment. But acting against Sumanta Roy (Binod), Rokeya Roy is stiff and shrill, which perhaps has to do with the fact that Sumanta Roy is hopelessly miscast in this role.

Gandharvi Khatua is in complete control of her faculties as she delves deep into Kurchi’s character to tease out the anguish of one torn between romantic desires and mundane responsibilities. Her ability to be expressive yet measured enriches the play. Mithu Chakraborty can explore ways and means of adding more punch to Bijli. Chandrayee Mitra, Ankita Bhattacharya and Kajol Shambhu shine during their relatively brief stage-spans. The music by Avigyan Khatua and Pratyay Raha is effective in underscoring the changing moods throughout the course of the play.