Utpal dutt biography of christopher

Barricade by Utpal Dutt, translated from the Bengali by Ananda Lal, Seagull Books, 2022

The Indian playwright Utpal Dutt wrote that myth is one of the most crucial forms of political storytelling because of its ability to transcend time and space, becoming relevant over and over again in new contexts. In Towards A Revolutionary Theatre, which is simultaneously a memoir of staging radical plays amidst the tense politics of his native Indian state of West Bengal in the 1960s and 1970s, and a manifesto about the necessity of leftist theatre, he cites William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar as an example of a literary work that has “freed itself of the trappings of its own age and has become a gigantic myth,” continually reinventing itself for new political circumstances. This is seen in productions set in Benito Mussolini’s Italy, which form a critique of the tyranny, demagoguery, and mob rule that make such regimes possible. 

Dutt’s play Barricade, which has been translated from the Bengali original by Indian theatre critic Ananda Lal and published by Seagull Books, is an attempt at such mythmaking. Set in the period just before the Nazi Party’s rise to power in Germany, the text is ostensibly about the party’s attempts to scapegoat their Communist rivals for the murder of an elderly political leader, but Dutt suggests throughout that the actual subject is the turbulent political situation then prevailing in West Bengal; the play was written in 1972, when the Congress-ruled government in Bengal was actively suppressing all forms of direct dissent. 

However, as Lal said in a recent interview, “The fact that he set Barricade in 1933, when the Nazis rose to power in Germany, didn’t make his viewers think that it was remote from their lives. On the contrary, they connected with it viscerally, sympathised and cheered at the right moments.” This speaks to Barricade’s power as political myth, one which is increasingly relevant in the contemporary Indian

next →← prev

Introduction

Utpal Dutta, sometimes known as Dutta, is an Indian actor, film director, and writer who works exclusively in Bengali cinema. Dutta is known for his performances in films such as 'Path O Prasad,' 'Gol Maal,' and 'Rang Birangi.' As a young man, he created the Little Theatre Group and appeared in numerous English productions. Later, his interests shifted toward more radical and political theatre.

Utpal Dutta performed Richard III as part of the Shakespeareana Theatre Company, founded by Geoffrey and Laura Kendal. Dutta spent a couple of years touring with the Kendals over the subcontinent. Later, he continued to act and produce plays as a member of the Little Theatre Group.

Early Life of Utpal Dutta

Utpal Dutt was born on March 29, 1929, into a middle-class Hindu Kayastha household. The family resided in Barisal, in what is now Bangladesh. He attended missionary schools and gained an English education.

Dutt started his education at Barisal's St. Edmund's School. He enrolled in the prestigious Jesuit institution St. Xavier's Collegiate School in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1945. In 1949, Dutt graduated with a bachelor's degree in English literature from St. Xavier's College. Dutt's initial venture into theatre started while he was attending St. Xavier's School in Kolkata. It was there that he first encountered Shakespeare and the classics of Europe.

Utpal Dutt picked up the fundamentals of acting throughout their lengthy tours of India and Pakistan in 1947 and 1953 because of the rigorous regimen and rigorous rehearsal and training schedule. After renaming the group 'Little Theatre Group' (LTG) in 1949, Utpal Dutta proceeded to present plays by Ibsen, Rabindranath Tagore, Shaw, and Gorky. However, Dutt subsequently decided to present only Bengali plays; he spoke Hindi, English, and Bengali fluently, in addition to Spanish, German, French, and Latin. In addition, he was one of the founding members of the left-leaning Indian

Portraying the balding, pot-bellied, mustachioed, and regimen-imposing Bhawani Shankar in a brace of Bollywood laugh riots, or ACP Dhurandhar Bhatawadekar or Kailash Pati in more Hrishikesh Mukherjee films are his masterclass in finely calibrated over-the-top comedy. But they are not the only legacy of Utpal Dutt, who was capable of – and displayed – much more versatile acting on both stage and screen.

And this was recognised by his peers. There is a story that once he and Raj Kapoor were at the Calcutta airport in 1973, when a cinema fan went to the latter to get his autograph and was told to approach Dutt first, with the master showman saying that he was only a “star”, but Dutt was an actor!

While Dutt’s sense of timing, the funny intonation, and the maniacal gleam and laughter he could produce at will, served him well in comedy as “Gol Maal” (1979), “Rang Birangi” – with its slapstick chase through a children’s playground, “Kissi Se Na Kehna” (both 1983), “Lakhon Ki Baat” (1984), et al, attest, he could deftly turn the same mannerisms to display a marked unrepentant villainy.

Be it as the leader of the 40 thieves in “Marjina Abdulla” (Bengali, 1973), the crafty munim Ghoshal who drives the hero (Uttam Kumar) to utter despair in “Amanush” (Bengali and Hindi, 1975), as corrupt and venal politicians Dharam Kohli in “Kotwal Sahab” (1977) and Seetaram in “Inquilaab” (1984), or Sahuji, who spins a web of corruption in the entire region, in “Barsaat Ki Ek Raat” (1981), he could present a dark side that also made him one of Bollywood’s chilling villains.

All this histrionic capability owe to his through grounding in theatre – where he made a name for himself both as a performer and a playwright – and a firebrand who was al

See full article at GlamSham