As the lights dimmed in the Jack E. Singley Academy auditorium in Irving the story of Shakuntala played on stage. While the play is well known among the Bangladeshi community, according to Bangla Group Dallas it had never been performed in the United States until now.
Manzur Choudhury, spokesperson for Bangla Group Dallas, said the play is “actually well renowned and well known to the literary world.”
Shakuntala was originally a minor character in the ancient Hindu epic Mahabharata. The poet Kalidasa gave Shakuntala her own spin-off play thousands of years ago. Kalidasa’s Shakuntula was more of a romantic tale.
In the 1970s, after Bangladesh gained independence, playwright Selim al-Deen reinterpreted the play. His Shakuntala is instead a tragedy divided into two acts, which focused on Shakuntala’s journey to understand her own identity.
Bangla Group Dallas has been working for over a year to bring Shakuntala to Texas stages. The non-profit group was created 20 years ago and has been informing the community about Bengali culture through stage productions.
“We are, like, 8,000 miles away from home but we still try to practice the culture that we had back home in Bangladesh,” Arnila Guha, who plays Shakuntala, said.
The play is directed by well-known Bengali actor and director Shahiduzzaman Selim. For this production, the cast and crew of 25 people from around the world spent nine months rehearsing over zoom, before coming together to rehearse in person one month before the first performance.
“Every time I play the role of Shakuntala, my head hurts once it’s done because I literally try to embody her because the character means so much to me,” Guha said.
The actors had to learn how to speak in ancient Bengali, which can be compared to Shakespearean English according to Choudhury, who is also a cast member.
“All of the audience will not understand everything because it’s a very tough Bengali, however the theater has its own language,” Choudhury said.
The group’s production of Shakuntala has been touring across Texas. The show debuted in Austin in June and then moved to San Antonio. This tour was created to celebrate both the 50th anniversary of the play’s debut and al-Deen, whose 75th birthday would have been this year.
The tour closed last weekend with a performance in Irving. The actors brought al-Deen’s words to life with extravagant costumes featuring vibrant traditional dresses and tunics in reds, oranges and teals, plus gold crowns sourced from India.
The stage was filled with various jungle shrubbery and vines, while smoke and multicolored lights cascaded down. In total, the group spent $15,000 putting on the production.
Hundreds of people attended the play over the two nights it was shown in Irving. Samina Islam saw the show with friends.
“It’s an amazing story that I’m pretty sure a lot of Bengalis have kind of gone through over the years,” Islam said. “It’s a very classic story that we read all of our lives and we wanted to see it on stage.”
The Dallas Bangla Group hopes to stage the play in Houston, and also in Oklahoma and other states later this year.
“We want everyone to witness what Bangladeshi theater can do,” Guha said.
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