Arnab Chatterjee

The Meeting and Other Plays Arnab Chatterjee

These plays do not convey much, nor do they seek to demonstrate in the traditional sense. They are not "well-made plays" in the strict sense of the term. In one, a meeting that seeks to solve the issues of day-to-day affairs of a residential society sees supernatural beings joining in, but their serio-comic inclusion deepens the complexity further. In yet another, a nondescript man suddenly becomes the center of attention, hitherto neglected and confined to the fringes of human civilization. In the third, the Devil himself gives an altogether new, albeit mock conception of hell and heaven and becomes one with the mundane and the brazen. Whatever be the 'vision' of the dramatist, these plays with three different, yet recognizable backgrounds just give an image of what may happen. The dividing line between reality and illusion is blurred and nothing seems to be impossible. Using a somewhat magic-realist mode, they show the seemingly bizarre, commonplace.