A scene from Sangpala staged at Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy. — Snigdha Zaman

The traditional theatre festival organised by Theatre and Film Department of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy wrapped up on Wednesday with the presentation of a sangpala by Kali Pundit Sangpala troupe from Tangail at the Experimental Theatre Hall of the academy.
Ten male artistes belonging to the Mandai community, along with orchestra team presented various social irregularities, moral degradations with lively and satirical narrations, comical movements and gestures, circus and mime.
Seven separate stories had been narrated by the artistes in painted faces and in typical joker like attire and traditional costumes. In one of the stories features a vagabond rural boy, who never likes to do any job rather annoys villagers, faces arbitration for keeping an extra-marital relations with his maternal aunty.
Another story features a truant schoolboy’s comical training process to become a skillful thief. The comedy satirises the social turmoil by portraying the jobless father’s interest to learn stealing from his son.
Saidur Rahman Lipon, a teacher of theatre department of Dhaka University as an audience, told New Age, ‘The presentation was exciting. Especial thanks goes to the organisers for inviting a troupe from vulnerable Mandia community to stage sangpala. The performance of the boy character was praiseworthy.’
Another audience Ayon Kumar Khokon, a government service holder, said, ‘I enjoyed the show.’ Gobardhan Burman wrote the pala around 20 years back. This is for the first time pala has been staged in Dhaka, though the troupe stages it regularly in the rural areas in Tangail.
Another scheduled troupe of the concluding day event, Lalonbhumi Theatre from Jhinaidah, did not participate with its traditional ashtok gaan performance. In fact, the organizers had to re-organise the schedule of the festival due to the unavoidable political crisis. Six troupes from across the country presented different genres of traditional art forms at the festival, which Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy organises biannually to promote traditional theatre artistes.