Sandipani, written by Anirban Sen and directed for Pragati by Abir Ghosh, is an interesting take on facets of Che Guevara’s life that are not often discussed — Che as a lover, a husband, and a father. Sen has sourced the material of his play from Remembering Che: My Life with Che Guevara, the memoir penned by Che’s wife, Aleida March Torres. The intimate and personal nature of the source text ensures that the Che presented in Sandipani is not so much the firebrand revolutionary, but a mellow, sensitive individual as invested in interpersonal relationships as in revolution. Right on cue, Ghosh has perceptively taken care to bring the familiar visual of the olive green jacket-clad, bearded Che sporting his trademark beret on stage extremely sparingly — Sandipani’s Che is a rather debonair, neatly-groomed man, fitting the bill of lover/husband perfectly.

The most interesting aspect of Sandipani, however, is Sen’s creative construction of the plot so as to roll two plays into one. The introductory section, which initially seems to be an elaborate ruse merely to facilitate the Guevara chronicle, quite unexpectedly — theatrically, actually — turns out to be the foundation of a narrative strand independent of the Che story. The second half of the play exposes the gross (yet conveniently unacknowledged) gender imbalance in an apparently liberal, Left-leaning Bengali domestic setup where the husband enjoys a position of privilege and power vis-à-vis the wife. There is a hint of an attempt, sadly not fully explored, to critically revisit the Che-Aleida relationship in the light of the skewed power equation between the Bengali couple.

The ever-dependable Sumit Kumar Roy and Garbita Ghosh convincingly play their roles as Che and Aleida, respectively, with their on-stage chemistry definitely adding to the play’s charms. Avi Sengupta (Dipak) and Minakshi Das (Runu) are steady and balanced in their roles. A number of young actors play a host of minor characters with a welcome display of application and discipline.