What is Man of the Heart?
Written and performed by Sudipto Chatterjee and directed by Suman Mukhopadhyay, Man of the Heart is a performance on the life and times of Lalon Shah Phokir, the nineteenth century Bengali Sufi saint and song-maker, whose fame stretches across the political and religious borders dividing Bangladesh and West Bengal (India). It is
a multi-media solo-performance incorporating live music, dance, spoken word, video and recorded audio. Without assuming any ‘character’ or ‘story’, it attempts to speak/ perform around the biography of Lalon Phokir. Man of the Heart is also an exploratory piece on the body-based philosophy and practice of a sect among Bengali Sufis and Vaishnavs known as Bauls. Of them, Lalon Phokir is regarded as the greatest. He practised personally but spoke publicly through his songs. His music performance and practice em-bodied a highly syncretic philosophy that drew from diverse religious sources. He confronted orthodox fundamentalisms and preached a radically different search for divinity that, according to his beliefs, could be located within the corporeal frame. Lalon Phokir was a so-called illiterate poet who worked within his small space in nineteenth century Bengal, never aiming to reach high or even enter the world of literary fame. His songs have spread by word of mouth, often as lingering melodies that refuse to leave public memory, and have survived the ravages of time. Man of the Heart probes into, both Lalon’s history as well as legacy, through an exploration of his songs and what they say. Man of the Heart is located between academic research and creativity, ethnography and mediated live performance. It is theatre that takes an unconventional route and engages with the rigours of academic inquiry into the practice and philosophy of the Baul-Phokirs of Bengal who offer a message that is relevant for the rest of the world to hear. Lalon Phokir wanted to situate his “faith” as counter-institutional, but not as a counter-institution itself. He believed that Divinity dwells within every human body. The search for the Divine, thus, has to travel inwards through ethical introspection and moral cleanliness. In a world rife with strife, Lalon’s message carries a simple significance that is important to communicate, with all its philosophic depth, to the widest audience possible. Who has seen Man of the Heart? Man of the Heart has been performed extensively in the USA before critical audiences in California, New York and Chicago, as well as in Calcutta, India, involving artistes from India and Bangladesh. In 2006, the production had its off-off-Broadway run in New York under the aegis of Richard Schechner’s East Coast Artists, followed by an invited performance in Los Angeles. In December 2007, Man of the Heart was staged for the first time in Calcutta, and then again in September 2008. It was staged in the UK at Loughborough University and London’s prestigious Barbican Arts Centre in March 2010. In 2011 and 2012, there were performances in Berlin (including the Haus der Kulturen der Welt and the International Theater Institute) and Rome (Instituto Italiano di Cultura Bengalese). It has since been performed several times in Kolkata and has visited Bengaluru twice in 2013 and 2015. In April 2017, the production had its first performance in Bangladesh. In 2018, it has been performed at the prestigious 10 jvjb Drme 2 0 2 2 International Theatre Festival of Kerala 2018 as well as the 8th Theatre Olympics. When is Man of the Heart? Man of the Heart Project was launched in 2005, when writer-performer Sudipto Chatterjee started working with the Calcutta-based Indian director Suman
Mukhopadhyay at the University of California-Berkeley. However, its preparation goes back to the early nineties when the ethnographic research began in Bangladesh and other parts of Bengal. The final scripting, designing and performance composition happened in 2005. Since then, with each re-mounting in various parts of the world, the production has undergone changes and has evolved in response to breakthroughs in research and new creative ideas. In 2012, after a year-long research fellowship and performances in Berlin and other parts of Europe, the production was ‘rediscovered’ yet again in India in 2013 and its evolutionary journey is still ongoing…. Director & Playwright: Suman Mukhopadhyay is one of Kolkata’s leading theatre directors with several well-known productions to his credit, including Tisa Paarer Brittanto and Mephisto for his theatre group, Tritiyo Sutra, for whom he has also staged critically acclaimed productions of Rabindranath Tagore’s Bisarjan and Jara Aagun Lagaay. He has also directed William Shakespeare’s King Lear for Minerva Repertory Theatre, starring Soumitra Chatterjee. Though not his first collaboration with Chatterjee, Man of the Heart is the first solo-performance Mukhopadhyay has directed. He has also directed productions of Girish Karnad’s Nagamandala and Shudraka’s Little Clay Cart in the USA. Since 2005, Suman has also forayed into feature films that have won national and international awards. His second film based on the works of Tagore is Shesher Kabita, released in 2013. In the same year he also made Kangal Malshat (based on Nabarun Bhattacharya’s novel). His latest film, Asamapta, has travelled in the global festival circuit, receiving great critical acclaim. He returned to the Kolkata stage recently, playing Don Quixote in Don: taaké bhaalo laagé. Recently, he received the Fulbright Scholarship from the US government. He is currently in the final stages of completing his latest film, Putulnacher Itikatha. Sudipto Chatterjee is a scholar/playwright/performer/director from Calcutta, India. His book on 19th century Bengali theatre, The Colonial Staged, was published in 2007. His academic work has been published in several international anthologies as well as international journals. The author of several plays in Bengali and English, he has directed several productions including Nuraldeen’s Lifetime (by Syed Shamsul Haq) in
New York and Calcutta, Girish Karnad’s Hayavadana, Badal Sircar’s Bhoma and JM Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World (in the USA) and its Bengali adaptation Birpurus (in Calcutta). His first anthology of Bengali plays, Abhiropan, was published in 2005. Chatterjee has also made two documentaries, one of them, Free To Sing, on singer-activist Kabir Suman. In 2011-12, he received the “Interweaving Performance Cultures” Fellowship at the Free University, Berlin. Chatterjee is the Artistic Director of Spectactors, a Kolkata-based theatre group, for whom he has directed Rajar Mrityu (based on Iranian playwright Bahram Beyzaie’s play) and more recently Aagshuddhi (based on Arthur Miller’s play). Chatterjee wrote and directed, Bhadrajaa, for Spectactors in 2018. As an actor, he has played the lead role in the globally acclaimed filmmaker, Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s Tope (The Bait, 2017) that has been screened at various international festivals, including Toronto, London, Busan, etc. Chatterjee has acted in several other films as well and performs regularly in theatre productions in Kolkata. He currently heads Longhon Rekha, a media company producing digital performance, for whom is working on several projects, including Titikkha, a web series, and at present Antaran, a digital play. His recent film, Dhoop: Scent of God won the Anandalok Best Short Film Award in 2022. jvjb Drme 2 0 2 2