An exciting adventure for Bangladeshi theatre

I've been involved with the British Council since 2002 – there was an initiative to connect UK youth and Bangladeshi youth through a digital photography workshop. After that, I was part of a theatre initiative organised by the British Council and Contact Theatre in Manchester, called Contacting the World. I was part of a performance in 2004, and I came to London for the first time. In 2006 I was part of Contacting the World again, and then in 2008 I came as an emerging theatre artist, supported by Theatre Royal Stratford East, for the International Festival for Emerging Artists. The British Council selected me to participate in that festival again in 2010. In 2011, I worked with Chicken Shed Theatre and in 2012 I worked with the diaspora of Bangladeshi people in East London, with artists. I'm currently working towards a Shakespearean performance, which will be premiered in London in 2016 as part of the big Shakespeare celebration.

"The play urges people to save the environment, to save human lives. Life is important."

This is a very special visit for me. I am supported by the Charles Wallace Trust as a visiting artist 2013-14, and I came to work with Chicken Shed for two months. Meanwhile, I directed a play that will be performed at the Tin Forest International Theatre Festival for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. The play is called Dokkhina Sundari – with means Southern Beauty in Bangla – and has been created with National Theatre of Scotland, the University of Dhaka and Bangladeshi actors. The play is based on the theory that life is important – human life, a tree's life, a beast's life. A few thousand years back, in my country, there was an ancient scripture which refers to the Bengal tiger as the Southern Beauty, so that's where the title comes from. The play is based on the largest mangrove in the world, situated in Bangladesh. It's endangered by unplanned power plants and things, and is a worry for the climate and the environment. The play urges people to save the environment, to save human lives, to save beasts' lives – life is important.

This is all very exciting for me, because it's the first time ever that a Bangladeshi play is going to be performed at the Commonwealth Games. It's an exciting adventure for Bangladeshi theatre. This is the third time I've come to the UK with a Bangla play; the first time was in 2004 when I came to Manchester, which we performed to audiences that were Bangladeshi and English and from other countries – they all loved it and it was very moving. The second time, I came with a solo performance, with a female actor who performed a whole play. That was performed in 2011 at Chicken Shed Theatre, and audiences loved it, and asked us to do an extra performance.

A lot of performances in Bangladesh are traditional, indigenous performance, and there are a lot of city-based performances. In my country, indigenous performers are very professional, but the city-based performers are not – they do other jobs and do theatre in the evenings. But it's the city performers who are the mainstream because they're in the cities, they have the media, the attention, the money. I'm working at the University of Dhaka, looking at this. In the UK, a lot of performances are professional – they get money for their theatre work. It's more committed and dedicated, and it's well-finished. In Bangladesh, the skill is there but there are far less professional theatre makers. UK theatre is more dedicated and more political, too. I saw Black Watch when I was here before, and it was so moving, so exciting... I went back to Bangladesh and wanted to make new work.

Credits

Sudip Chakroborthy was talking to Eleanor Turney. Sudip's play, Dokkhina Sundari, will be performed as part of the Tin Forest International Theatre Festival in Glasgow on 24 July. Follow @UKTheatreDance for all of the latest news, opportunities and blogs.