The wonderful tradition of hosting Supper Theatre at the Calcutta Club was back with a bang on April 23, organised by the Wine & Cigar and Library subcommittees. As expected, the audience, many of which theatre-enthusiasts, was really happy. The Supper Theatre offers a fine-dining experience along with visual entertainment in the form of expertly-performed plays, and April 23 was no exception. With a showing of two plays, the evening was all set to be an enlightening experience for everyone who attended. The chairperson Anusua Das and president Indranil Ghosh addressed the audience at the beginning of the event, which then led to the highlight of the evening — the two plays.
The first dramatised reading, called Snapshot, was a play that was entirely in English and conveyed light-hearted hilarity through its reading. Closer to home was the second play titled Anukul, which was a Bengali play that represented a narrative based on the Satyajit Ray short story with the same name. Each play was a short piece that was around twenty five minutes long, giving the audience ample time to savour each performance entirely. The accomplished actors in the dramatised reading were director Rita Roy, Shyamal Kumar Banerjee and Punam Singh, while the line-up of the second play was a talented bunch consisting of Asok Ghoshal, Somnath Banerjee, Debashis Barat, Rajrupa Chakraborty and Bodhi Brata Das.
(L-R) Bodhi Brata Das, the director of the Bengali dramatised reading of Anukul, Anusua Das, chairperson of Wine & Cigar and Library subcommittees, and Rita Roy, the director of the English dramatised reading of Snapshot
As part of the concept of it being the Supper Theatre, each dramatised reading was punctuated by filling delicacies, such as Chicken Mont Blanc with wine and Baked Alaska, that assuredly had the audience raving about it for days after. Having served fine wine with various palatial dishes, the attendees experienced the perfect end to the huge success that the well-attended Supper Theatre was.
“This Supper Theatre event had been organised many years ago, and it has just made a comeback recently. The response from the audience was very enthusiastic, and we received a lot of footfall for the event. The members have been requesting me to hold this Supper Theatre event, and I have to say that we intend to organise it very frequently from now, perhaps once in every month,” commented Indranil Ghosh, president of Calcutta Club
The dramatised reading of Anukul. Asok Ghoshal, Rajrupa Chakraborty, Debashis Barat, Somnath Banerjee, and director Bodhi Brata Das executed the reading in a refreshing manner.
“The mantra is to break the mould and innovate on every club program which will eventually help the club members to slowly come out of the traumatic clutch of the pandemic period. Looking at the audience response and jubilation at the end, I would say our job is done and the goal is achieved. Hope we will continue this streak of innovation in the coming months. Carpe Diem,” said Anusua Das, chairperson of Wine & Cigar and Library subcommittee, Calcutta Club
“Anukul is one such story, which is a thriller and at the same time it will trigger thousands of open-ended questions as an after-thought in the mind of the audience. A roller-coaster ride of 25 minutes dramatised reading left an indelible mark. All these truly justified the apt selection of Anukul. I am glad that the audience appreciated the performance, light, sound and script,” elaborated Bodhi Brata Das, director of Anukul.
Pictures: B.Halder