Dubai: Mangalore Konkans to Present Award-winning Play ’Bhangar Monis’

Media Release

Dubai, 13 September 2011: Mangalore Konkans, a premier charitable organisation in Dubai since 23 years will present the award-winning Konkani play "Bhangar Monis" by Charles Francis DeCosta (Cha Fra) on Friday September 30 at Sheikh Rashid Auditorium, Indian High School here.

 

 

The play has been directed and performed by award-winning director and actors from Mangalore, namely, Denis Monteiro, Stany Alvares, Assumpta Pais and Sapna Crasta.

 

Prior to the play melodious songs will be rendered by the stars of Gulf Voice of Mangalore 2008 and 2010.

 

The event will start at 6 pm and will end before 10 pm. There will be no formal stage programme.

 

About Cha Fra DeCosta

 

 

C F DeCosta (Cha Fra) is considered the best playwright Karnataka has ever seen.  His plays electrified the Konkani stage in Mangalore and Bombay with new ideas and themes. He saw the tremendous advance made in the Marati and Gujarati theatre and was influenced by it. His dialogues are full of biting satire. Figures of speech and rhymes flow through them in an unending stream.

 

He has written upon themes which other playwrights hesitated to touch. Story, dialogue, language, characterisation and stage craft are given equal importance in his plays. The phrases and idioms he invents in his dialogue are unique to his plays. His plays may be called dramatic poems. They reflect the probelms of the Mangalorean Christian community, their life-style, tradition and above all a penetrating insight into their psyche. DeCosta wrote his first play ’Sobit Sounsar’ in 1955.

 

Fearlessly, he unmasks the hypocrite and the self-complacent attacks unjust and inhuman religious and social customs and manners. He does not spare the seemingly well-knit Konkani family life either.

 

Some of his popular one-act plays are "Sunnem Mazor Hansta" (The dog and cat laugh), ’Tomato’, ’Vishentiche Bhau’ (Vincent’s Brothers), ’Tornem Tornem Mornem’. With his inimitable tongue in cheek style couched in a crisp telling language, DeCosta exposes all the frailities of human nature and especially the contradictions of family life.

 

’Sunnem Mazor Hansta’ is representative of C F DeCosta’s dramatic style and his outlook on life. Professor Idisore Morello is endowed with the gift of understanding speech of animals and a lot of unpalatable facts and truth are revealed to him, provoking laughter but also pity.

 

Here his language turns often vitriolic and though it exposes the vices of persons and evils of society it cannot be denied that it smacks of cynicism.

 

His ’Sobit Sounsar’ which was a scathing satire on the dowry system brought him unstinted praise from the Marathi dramatist P K Atre.

 

’Vishentiche Bhau’ is a tragic tale of the unpardonable neglect of a mother by her sons. Even after her death none is ready to bury her. The mother at last springs surprise by rising from the dead.

 

His ’Tornem Tornem Mornem’ a caustic satire on the life of the priests brought on him the ire of the clergy.

 

His other plays are ’Poinnareancho Mitr’, ’Bhangar Monis’, ’Jorgi Buthel’, ’Mankddacho Pai’, ’Magirchem Magir’, ’Boklak Sat Jeev’, ’Kuvalyachi Vaal’, ’Handdo Uttla’, ’Boncho Bandh’, ’Dev Pollet Asa’, ’Shirigundi Shimanv’, etc

 

About Bhangar Monis :

’Bhangar Monis’ has been claimed as one of Cha Fra’s best plays in terms of his craft. The play is set in Bombay. Janna, who is called Bhangar Monis or an ideal man, lives with his wife, Inna, and has a maid called Mary.

 

The family has been relocated from Mangalore to Bangalore. Janna is a well-known person and a social worker in his place. Into this family entres Monna, an old lover of Inna, both of whom had lost contact after Inna got married to Janna.

 

Monna, is a drunkard whom in a distant past, Janna had helped. Inna had also financially helped him. Now he is back once again, with hardly any changes. He is drunk, he is hungry and still claims to have respect for Janna and love towards Inna.

 

 

The plot of the play develops and creates extremely farcical situations with both Inna and Mary trying to hide Monna from Janna, and Janna searching for him with the help of his neighbours.

 

In the process we come to know about the gap between Janna and Inna in their married life and their attitudes towards each other and others. The play is a satire on marriage as a coming together of two individuals. The play goes on to challenge social and biblical understanding of marriage and role of husband and wife in marriage.