Theatre troupe Fourth Wall Theatre premiered their play titled 404: Naam Khunje Paoya Jayni at the National Theatre Hall of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy in Dhaka on Friday.
With nonlinear events, the play is set in dystopian form where a theatre troupe cancels their regular performances and discusses what is going on in the world.
Written and directed by Md Lahul Mia, Abdul Munim Tarafdar is the dramaturge of the production. Syed Muhammad Jubayer has designed the stage and the light while Md Moniruzzaman Ripon has designed the music of the production.
The play presents a bunch of performances, including rap song, traditional jatra, songs of street hawkers, people’s songs and slogans of July uprising.
It also shows an elected dictator, a television talk show and the disappearance of a youth protester. Â
The elected dictator appears like the United States president Donald Trump who plays with the globe and threatens attacks in the name of peacekeeping.
He kills a child of another state for writing a protest poem, and arrests his father who teaches about freedom at a school, declaring that children are the enemy of his state and he will make his country great again by destroying others.
The television talk show titled Batabi Lebur Bampar Phalan depicts two leaders of the country who allege each other for destroying the peace of citizens but they are not interested in engaging youth in the politics. They promote love stories for youth instead of national interest.
The final story is about Turja, a student of Class 10, who goes missing during a protest and his parents recall his skill as a football player in his school team. Turja is brutally killed during the July uprising in 2024, and the police shoot him in his eyes and hide his dead body. Her mother narrates his childhood events and their activities to grow their child.
The play demands justice for Turja and others who have killed in the uprising.Â
‘I strongly believe that arts have the responsibility to question the roles of state. If arts do not criticise the state, it can be machinery of state suppressions,’ Md Lahul Mia said.
The play was premiered as part of the ‘Remembering Monsoon Revolution’ programme organised with the support from the cultural affairs ministry.
