Aurangzeb

About the Play:

In Hindustan, the Mughal Emporium had the blood line of Toimur Long and Genghis Khan, the tradition of Toimur dynasty was- every prince has the same authority to the throne, regardless of seniority, the one whose sword is the longest, the sharpest, the most successful has the most possession. This is how the Mughal Emporium was run from ages after ages. Emperor Humayun conquered the throne by fighting against his brothers Kamran, Ashkari and Hindal. Lord Akbar also used the arsenal against Mirza Muhammod Hakim. Emperor Jahangir declared a rebellion against his own father. Emperor Shahjahan conquered the throne by shedding bloods of his brothers Khosru and Shahriar. But Shahjahan lived his last years of life as a prisoner of his son Aurangzeb. Though Aurangzeb, son of Shahjahan was devout Sunni Muslim, he imprisoned his father to get the hold of the throne and killed his brothers Dara, Murad and Suja who were also the claimants of the throne. But in every era, the battle of power and throne revolves in the same circle. At the dying age of Emperor Shahjahan, Emperor Aurangzeb was also imprisoned by his sons after they went rebellion, and lived his last stage of life at Ahommodnagar with his daughter Zinat. It was similar to the way his father got imprisoned by him and lives the last stage of his life at the royal of Delhi with his daughter Jahanara. The emperor Aurangzeb died when his son went rebellion, prince Akbar died after fleeing away to Persia and MuhammodMiaz got imprisoned. At the end, his third and the youngest sons Azam and Kam Bakhsh got engaged in the conspiracy of killing each other to conquer the throne. Before his last breaths, at the age of ninety, the old Aurangzeb got to realize that “If someone becomes heartless even after having the holy Qur’an with him, then there is no mercy for him, because the almighty Allah and the holy Qur’an never say to be a heads-man, the almighty Allah and the holy Qur’an never teach to conquer the throne by shedding bloods of brothers.”
“Aurangzeb” is the name of an intense protest against all the brutalities, cruelties or inhuman unjust done in every era, in every country by using the religion and for the sake of religion.

Director Notes

Have to write, So…
As a dramatist and audience, it’s my observation from past one decade that the scarcity of good stories with rich acting and brilliant dialogues in our stage productions is only increasing. Undesirable, unnecessary physical feats, choreography or music based productions in the name of theatre are occupying that place. In the tendency of doing or showing many unnecessary things, strongly built stories, dialogues and acting based dramas loses their identities. In those productions, I find another crisis among the actors and actresses. As the culture of showing a collective physical feat or practicing choreography based dramas is continuously increasing, the process of increasing the personal acting skills of actors-actresses or the process of building up the new comers as a skilled actor/actress is getting interrupted. As a result of this, the audience of this time gets to see many things in a drama, but can’t witness a brilliant acting, a brilliant story or a brilliant dialogue.

The play “Aurangzeb” attracted me by its strongly built story and dialogue pattern, which can really challenge an actor or actress. It challenges a director as well. And almost all the historical characters of this drama are big challenges for the performers. Because every skillful performer has the opportunity of portraying each of those characters in a jovial manner. From the very beginning, Prangonemor has always tried to choose plays with good stories and dialogues and gift the audience a skillfully acted drama with the help of the creativity of the director. We believe that all the other things are secondary other than good stories, acting and dialogues, in other words all the other arrangements are for the story, play and acting. We continued our same efforts in the production “Aurangzeb”.

We started rehearsing this in the November of 2011 and all the members of Prangonemor worked hard in last 84 working days to gift a good drama to the audience. If we succeed, then I believe that the reason of this success is surely the inspiration, madness and honesty that every friend of Prangonemor theatre troupe posses inside themselves. The most creative stage and light artist of this time, FayejZahir was with us like the way he always was in our past productions, or even more this time. We are grateful to him.

 Direction:  Ananta Hira
Writing: Mohit Chottapadhay 
Premier show- 28 september 2012
Venue –Jatio NatyaShala, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka.

Aurangzeb Back Stage & On Stage