A four-day Selim Al Deen festival marking the eminent playwright鈥檚 76th birth anniversary began at Bangladesh Mahila Samity in the capital Dhaka on Friday with the premiere show of Deyal, a play written by the playwright and directed by Anik Islam.
The Dhaka Theatre is organising the festival marking the birth anniversary of the late Selim Al Deen.
Deyal depicts the mass resistance in 1971 against the Pakistani military and their collaborators.
Deyal is set on December 14, 1971, when the Pakistani military and their collaborators executed a target killing of Bangladeshi intellectuals. Inside a Pakistani military鈥檚 temporary camp in a district town of the then East Pakistan, an editor of a newspaper and the chairman of a peace committee which was comprised of collaborators organised a meeting with a military captain. They discussed the war, violence and the future of East Pakistan which is going to be independent by creating mass resistance against the Pakistan military. A lot of freedom fighters and intellectuals were detained at the camp. At the end of the play, a guerrilla fighter attacked the camp and the captain was injured by his own bullet reflected from the wall.
Avijit Biswas, Nayar Sultana, Mohammad Tarikul Islam Liton, Ehsanur Rahman, Farzana Chumki and Mahia Nakib, among others, played different characters for the play.
Soujonno Adhikary and Wahid Ansar Hillol designed music while Aminul Asraf and Tahrima Priyanka did choreography and Wasim Ahmed designed light for the production.
Director Anik said, 鈥楧eyal was Selim Al Deen鈥檚 one of the earlier plays written post-Liberation War. The short play highlighted the submissive characteristics of the opportunists who supported the genocide for their benefits,鈥� Anik said, adding that Deyal was also a symbol of mass resistance against the power of tyrant.
Deyal is the 53rd theatre production of Dhaka Theatre and the play will be staged today and tomorrow as part of the festival.
The festival will end on August 18 with Dhaka Theatre鈥檚 popular production titled 鈥楴imajjan鈥�, written by Selim Al Deen and directed by Nasir Uddin Yousuff.聽聽聽
Selim Al Deen was born in Feni on August 18, 1949.
In 1974, he joined the Bangla department of Jahangirnagar University as a lecturer and in 1986 he opened the drama and dramatics department at the JU.
He enriched Bangladeshi theatre by writing plays, including Shakuntala, Kittankhola, Keramat Mangal, Hathadai, Chaka, Jaibati Kainyar Mon, Hargaj, Bonpangshul, Nimojjon and Dhaboman. Selim Al Deen received different awards, including the National Film Award in 1994, the Bangla Academy Literary Award in 1984 and Ekushey Padak in 2007.聽 He died on January 14, 2008.
