বাংলা

English

4.48 Psycosis/Montrash (2020)

4.48 Montrash is a defining feat of theater composed in unparalleled subversive and poetic form. First staged in 2020, it barrelled home a scathing, visceral testament of burning, universal relevance, defying linear narrative conventions and embracing a post-dramatic structure. It bleeds in extended monologues, streams of consciousness, fragments of everyday dialogue, soliloquies, and direct addresses to the audience.

At the heart of the play is a young artist, whose psyche is harrowingly carved by severe depression. However, a psychological condition is prescribed and administered into her by the mental health specialists, without her consent, as she stands witness to the relentless violence that pervades the social system. Rape, sexual assault, murder, suicide, torture, religious intolerance, the vile uncertainties of modern social existence – all etch into her psychological burden – while she desperately negotiates along and concedes to prescriptions of ‘well-being’ doled out by the modern society , science, church & state. Her angst reverberates well in the following poem by Nabarun Bhattacharya.

“That father who fears identifying his child’s corpse
I despise him.

That brother who appears unashamedly normal
I despise him.

The teacher, the intellectual, the poet and the clerk
Who do not seek to revenge this daylight murder
I despise him.

Eight corpses,
Lie across the path of consciousness

I am losing my senses
Eight pairs of eyes wide open watching me in my sleep
I am screaming
They call me all the time to the gardens even when the hour is late

I will go mad
I will kill myself
I will do whatever I want.
This valley of death –
I refuse to call my homeland.
This horrendous celebration of the executioner’s art
This vast killing field
This blood-soaked abattoir
I refuse to recognise it as my homeland.