As a gentle winter hush settled over Kolkata’s 23rd November’s evening, the Usha Ganguly Manch at Rangakarmee bore witness to a rare, haunting spectacle. There, upon that revered stage, Anton Chekhov’s immortal masterpiece Teen Bahne was revived with a new, trembling heartbeat.
This was no mere performance—it was the flowering of Raw Rehearsal, Rangakarmee’s earnest initiative to sculpt budding performers and gift them the courage of the stage.
What unfolded was not simply theatre, but a translucent mirror—reflecting human longing, fractured dreams, and the quiet, relentless current of time. In its clear depths, the audience glimpsed their own silhouettes and found themselves pulled into the deepest alcoves of their emotional worlds.
A Cadence, Slow and Deep
Under the subtle and poetic direction of Aniruddha Sarkar, the play unfurled like a wistful elegy—slow, deliberate, almost meditative. It moved with the grace of an old train halted at a forgotten station, its dim lights flickering between the warmth of hope and the ache of unending anticipation.
Olga, Masha, and Irina—the three sisters—wandered the bleak corridors of their confined lives, grasping at dreams that crumbled like brittle parchment. Their shared longing to return to Moscow shimmered like a distant star—radiant, beckoning, yet eternally beyond reach.
Performances that Breathed Beyond Words
Milan Kumari Panda’s Olga was a portrait of gentleness worn thin—a woman suspended between duty and quiet despair. Every shift of her expression carried the weight of unspoken sorrows, each gesture a whispered confession.
Shrishti Shukla as Masha brought to life a storm restrained—a rebellion born of unreturned love, a furnace of emotion contained within the fragile shell of innocence. Her presence made the stage throb with an almost palpable heartbeat.
Ritika Agarwal’s Irina radiated the soft glow of naïve dreams clashing against the granite of reality. Her portrayal was so vivid, so unbearably honest, that each emotion she revealed felt like the unveiling of some deeper, hidden truth.
The ensemble—Srish Dutta (Andrei), Dipanwita Sarkar (Natasha), Arindam Singh (Solyony), Raj Roy (Chebutykin), Vardhanam Daga (Tuzenbach)—brought Chekhov’s world to life with such unforced grace that the very boundary between spectator and stage dissolved into a shared breath.
A performance of profound poignancy came from Urjas Pratyush as Fidoutik. The moment he realized that his entire livelihood had been consumed by flames was rendered with such raw despair that the auditorium fell into a stunned stillness. His anguish seeped beyond the stage, touching the very marrow of every watching soul.
Meanwhile, Sameer Ali, Rudraneel Paik, Shubham Tigrania, Babita Sharma, Srijan Sharma, Ankit Choudhary, and other artists further strengthened the play’s texture through their small but significant characters—as if every single thread shone in its designated place.
Aniruddha Sarkar: Architect of Emotion, Silence, & Movement
A disciple of the legendary Usha Ganguly, Aniruddha Sarkar crafted this production with exquisite sensitivity. He balanced emotion, stillness, and movement with a master’s intuition—demonstrating yet again that Chekhov’s plays do not speak loudly; they seep gently into the soul and ignite a quiet, smoldering flame within.
Under his stewardship, Raw Rehearsal arises not merely as a training ground but as an inner sanctum—a crucible where artists are carved from the inside out, where voice, body, impulse, and truth are refined through a devotion almost ascetic in nature.
Raw Rehearsal: A Crucible for the Arts
For aspiring actors in Kolkata, such a space—demanding, authentic, and deeply introspective—is rare. This is why, in Teen Bahne, each actor did more than perform a character—they inhabited it, breathed it, surrendered to it.
With its tranquil rhythm, austere staging, and delicately sculpted emotional layers, Teen Bahne continued to ripple across the audience’s consciousness long after the final bow.
Even the silences of the stage composed their own spectral symphony—a music that brushed softly against something intimate, unseen, within the soul.
For Kolkata’s theatre lovers, this evening was a gentle reminder that theatre is not merely entertainment—it is a sanctified dialogue between the spirit and our shared human vulnerability.
Rangakarmee’s rendering of Chekhov’s Teen Bahne will undoubtedly be remembered as one of the most tender, resonant, and soul-stirring productions of the year.
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