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Utpal Dutt | |
|---|---|
 Dutt on a 2013 stamp of India | |
| Born | (1929-03-29)29 March 1929 |
| Died | 19 August 1993(1993-08-19) (aged 64) |
| Other names | Utpal Dutta |
| Occupation(s) | Actor, director, writer-playwright |
| Years active | 1947–1993 |
| Works | Filmography |
| Spouse | |
| Children | Bishnupriya Dutta |
| Awards | Full list |
Utpal Dutt (listenⓘ; 29 March 1929 – 19 August 1993) was an Indian actor, director, and writer-playwright. He was primarily an actor inBengali theatre, where he became a pioneering figure in ModernIndian theatre, when he founded the "Little Theatre Group" in 1949. This group enacted many English,Shakespearean andBrecht plays, in a period now known as the "Epic theatre" period, before it immersed itself completely in highly political and radical theatre. His plays became an apt vehicle for the expression of his Marxist ideologies, visible in socio-political plays such asKallol (1965),Manusher Adhikar,Louha Manob (1964),Tiner Toloar andMaha-Bidroha. He also acted in over 100Bengali andHindi films in a career spanning 40 years, and remains most known for his roles in films such asMrinal Sen’sBhuvan Shome (1969),Satyajit Ray’sAgantuk (1991),Gautam Ghose’sPadma Nadir Majhi (1992) andHrishikesh Mukherjee's breezy Hindi comedies such asGol Maal (1979) andRang Birangi (1983).[1][2][3][4] He also did the role of a sculptor, Sir Digindra Narayan, in the episodeSeemant Heera ofByomkesh Bakshi (TV series) onDoordarshan in 1993, shortly before his death.
He receivedNational Film Award for Best Actor in 1970 and threeFilmfare Best Comedian Awards. In 1990, theSangeet Natak Akademi, India's National Academy of Music, Dance and Theatre, awarded him its highest award, theSangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship for lifetime contribution to theatre.
Utpal Dutta was born into aBengali family on 29 March 1929 inBarisal. His father was Girijaranjan Dutta. After initial schooling atSt. Edmund's School, Shillong, he completed Matriculation fromSt. Xavier's Collegiate School,Kolkata in 1945.[5] He graduated with English Literature Honours fromSt. Xavier's College, Calcutta,University of Calcutta in 1949.[6][7]
Though he was active primarily in Bengali theatre, he started his career in English theatre. As a teenager in the 1940s, he developed his passion and craft in English theatre, which resulted in the establishment of "The Shakespeareans" in 1947. Its first performance was a powerful production of Shakespeare'sRichard III, with Dutt playing the king. This so impressedGeoffrey Kendal and Laura Kendal (parents of the actressJennifer Kendal), who led the itinerant "Shakespeareana Theatre Company", that they immediately hired him, and he did two year-long tours with them across India and Pakistan, enacting Shakespeare's plays, first 1947–49 and later 1953–54; and was acclaimed for his passionate portrayal ofOthello. After the Kendals left India for the first time in 1949, Utpal Dutt renamed his group the "Little Theatre Group" (LTG), and over the next three years, continued to perform and produce plays by Ibsen, Shaw, Tagore, Gorky and Konstantin Simonov. The group later decided to stage exclusively Bengali plays and to eventually evolve into a production company that would produce several Bengali movies. He also remained an active member ofGananatya Sangha, which performed through rural areas of West Bengal.[8]
He was also a founding member ofIndian People's Theatre Association (IPTA), an organisation known for its leftist leaning, but left it after a couple of years, when he started his theatre group. He wrote and directed what he called "Epic Theatre", a term he borrowed fromBertolt Brecht, to bring about discussion and change in Bengal. His Brecht Society, formed in 1948, was presided by Satyajit Ray. He became one of the most influential personalities in the Group Theatre movement. While accepting Brecht's belief of the audience being "co-authors" of the theatre, he rejected orthodoxies of "Epic theatre" as being impractical in India.[9] He also remained a teacher of English at theSouth Point School in Kolkata.
Soon he would turn to his nativeBengali, producing translations of several Shakespearean tragedies and the works of Russian classicists into Bengali. Starting in 1954, he wrote and directed controversial Bengali political plays, and alsoMaxim Gorky'sLower Depths in Bengali in 1957. In 1959, the LTG secured the lease ofMinerva Theatre, Kolkata, where most notablyAngar (Coal) (1959), based on the exploitation of coal-miners was showcased. For the next decade the group staged several plays here, with him as an impresario, and he still is remembered as one of the last pioneering actor-managers ofIndian theatre. He also formed groups likeArjo Opera andBibek Yatra Samaj.[5]
Meanwhile, his transition to films happened while performing the role ofOthello, when famous filmmaker Madhu Bose happened to be watching, and gave him the lead in his filmMichael Madhusudan (1950), based on the life of the revolutionary Indian poetMichael Madhusudan Dutt. Later, he himself wrote a play on the fragmented colonial psyche of Michael Madhusudan Dutt, and the ambivalence of swaying between "colonial" admiration and "anti-colonial" revolt. He went on to act in manyBengali films, including many films bySatyajit Ray.[2]
Dutt was also an extremely famous comic actor inHindi cinema, though he acted in only a handful of Hindi films. He acted in comedy movies, the most notable ones beingGuddi,Gol Maal,Naram Garam,Rang Birangi andShaukeen. He receivedFilmfare Best Comedian Award forGolmaal,Naram Garam andRang Birangi. He appeared inBhuvan Shome, (for which he was awarded theNational Film Award for Best Actor),Ek Adhuri Kahani andChorus, all byMrinal Sen;Agantuk,Jana Aranya,Joi Baba Felunath andHirak Rajar Deshe, bySatyajit Ray;Paar andPadma Nadir Majhi, byGautam Ghose;Bombay Talkie,The Guru, andShakespeare Wallah, byJames Ivory;Jukti Takko Aar Gappo, byRitwik Ghatak;Guddi,Gol Maal andKotwal Saab byHrishikesh Mukherjee;Shaukeen,Priyatama andHamari Bahu Alka directed byBasu Chatterjee andAmanush,Anand Ashram andBarsaat Ki Ek Raat byShakti Samanta.
Utpal Dutt also played the main villain characters in some of the major successfulAmitabh Bachchan starrers such asThe Great Gambler,Inquilaab (film) and the bilingual Hindi/Bangla movieBarsaat Ki Ek Raat. In fact, Utpal Dutt was the Hero (main lead) in Amitabh Bachchan's maiden ventureSaat Hindustani.
"Revolutionary theatre is essentially people's theatre, which means it must be played before the masses,.."
Dutt was also a lifelong Marxist and an active supporter of theCommunist Party of India (Marxist),[10] and his leftist "Revolutionary Theatre" was a phenomenon in the contemporary Bengali theatre. He staged many street dramas in favour of the Communist Party. He was jailed by theCongress government in West Bengal in 1965 and detained for several months, as the then state government feared that the subversive message of his playKallol (Sound of the Waves), (based on theRoyal Indian Navy Mutiny of 1946, which ran packed shows at Calcutta's Minerva Theatre), might provoke anti-government protests in West Bengal. The play turned out to be his longest-running play at the Minerva.Manusher Adhikare (Of People's Rights) in 1968, staged as a documentary drama, was a new genre inBengali theatre before, though it turned out to be his last production of the group at the Minerva, as they soon left the theatre. Thereafter, the group was given the name the "People's Little Theatre"; as it took on yet another new direction, his work came closer to the people, and this phase played an important role in popularising Indian street theatre, as he started performing at street-corners or "poster" plays, in open spaces, without any aid or embellishment, before enormous crowds. The year also marked his transition intoJatra orYatra Pala, a Bengali folk drama form, performed largely across rural West Bengal. He started writing Jatra scripts, produced and acted in them, even formed his own Jatra troupe. His jatra political dramas were often produced on open-air stages and symbolised his commitment to communist ideology, and today form his lasting legacy.[11]
Through the 1970s three of his plays;Barricade,Dusswapner Nagari (City of Nightmares) andEbaar Rajar Pala (Now it is the King's turn), drew crowds despite being officially banned.[1][5][12][13]
He wroteLouha Manab (The Iron Man), in 1964 while still in jail, based on a real trial against a pro-Stalin, ex-Politburo member by supporters ofNikita Khrushchev in Moscow of 1963. It was first staged atAlipore Jail in 1965, by the People's Little Theatre. His stay in jail unleashed a new period of rebellious and politically charged plays, includingTiner Toloar (The Tin Sword), partially based onPygmalion,Dushapner Nagari (Nightmare City),Manusher Odhikare (Rights Of Man), based on theScottsboro Boys case, protests against the racial discrimination and injustice of theScottsborough trial of 1931,Surya-Shikar (Hunting the Sun) (1978),Maha-Bidroha (The Great Rebellion) (1989), andLaal Durgo (Red Fort) (1990) about the demise of Communism, set in a fictitious East European country, andJanatar Aphim (Opiate of the People), (1990) lamented on Indian political parties exploiting religion for gain.[4] In all, he wrote twenty-two full-length plays, fifteen poster plays, nineteen Jatra scripts, acted in thousands of shows, and directed more than sixty productions, apart from writing serious studies of Shakespeare, Girish Ghosh, Stanislavsky, Brecht, and revolutionary theatre, and translating Shakespeare and Brecht.
He also directed a number of films such asMegh (1961), a psychological thriller,Ghoom Bhangar Gaan (1965),Jhar (Storm) (1979), based on the Young Bengal movement,Baisakhi Megh (1981),Maa (1983) andInquilab Ke Baad (1984).
Forty years after the staging of the classic playKallol which entails the story of the mutiny of Indian sailors against the British on the Arabian Sea, for which he was even imprisoned, was revived in 2005, asGangabokshe Kallol, part of the state-funded "Utpal Dutt Natyotsav" (Utpal Dutt Theatre Festival), on an off-shore stage, by theHooghly River in Kolkata.[14]
The Last Lear, the 2007 English film based on his playAajker Shahjahan, on an eccentricShakespearean actor, and directed for the screen byRituparno Ghosh, later won theNational Film Award for Best Feature Film in English.
In 1960, Dutt married theatre and film actressShobha Sen. Their only daughter, Bishnupriya Dutt, is a professor of Theatre & Performance studies at the School of Arts & Aesthetics atJawaharlal Nehru University,New Delhi.[15]
On 19 August 1993,[5] Dutt died due to a heart attack right after he returned home from the S.S.K.M hospital,Calcutta, West Bengal where he had undergone dialysis.[16]
This is an incomplete filmography of Utpal Dutt.
