Ironically, this is not the theatre first founded by Binodini. The original Star, built in 1883, was set up by actors Girish Chandra Ghosh, Amritalal Basu, Binodini, and a few of their colleagues at 68, Beadon Street, just down the road from the theatre’s present-day location on 75/3, Cornwallis Street.
The last play to be staged at the original Star was Manmath Roy’s Karagar in March 1931, after which it was demolished by the Calcutta Improvement Trust during its mammoth construction of Chittaranjan Avenue, one of Kolkata’s major thoroughfares. Today, nothing remains at 68, Beadon Street to indicate that one of the city’s first theatres was ever built at that address.
“Many are saying that this Star theatre is not the original Star,” says veteran theatre actor Surajit Bandyopadhyay. “But if I am unable to hold on to my original house, and I decide to make a new one and name it after my father, it is still a house dedicated to him,” he adds.
The renaming of Star theatre has brought significant focus on Binodini and one of the city’s oldest theatres.
Binodini was only 13 or 14 years old when she made her stage debut in December 1874 in one of Calcutta’s oldest drama theatres, the Great National Theatre. She played Draupadi from the Mahabharata. Two years later, she began working for the Bengal Theatre, the oldest theatre in Calcutta and the first of its kind in South Asia, and later moved on to the National Theatre. It was here that Binodini met Ghosh, actor-playwright and National Theatre owner who would go on to found Star theatre with her.
The name of Gurmukh Rai, also spelt Gurmookh Ray, is also closely linked with the origins of Star and Binodini’s life. While some journalists have claimed that he was a Marwari businessman who funded Star theatre on the condition that Binodini would be his mistress, other archival records are less clear. What is known is that while Binodini and Ghosh had founded Star, it was funded entirely by Rai.
In their paper ‘Actresses on Bengali stage-nati Binodini and Moyna: The present re-imagines the past’, Madhumita Roy and D Das refer to Binodini’s autobiographies Amar Katha (1912) and Amar Abhinetri Jiban (1924-25). They write that it was Binodini’s deep love for the stage, the theatre and her companions on the stage, that forced her to succumb to Rai’s whims. “Abandoning her former paramour’s shelter, she unwillingly accepts Gurmukh’s proposal of building a playhouse in lieu of Binodini,” they say.
Roy and Das write that Rai was all but ready to abandon his plans to build Star theatre and promised Binodini Rs 50 lakh, an astonishing sum in the late 1880s, presumably, if she went to him indefinitely. Hence, when Binodini rejected Rai’s offer, it was a surprise to everyone.
Her mentor Ghosh sowed the seeds of ambition in Binodini, and for some time, she found support from him and her colleagues, so much so that they proposed to name the new theatre after her – ‘B Theatre’, not her first name – write Roy and Das. But when the theatre opened, it was named Star.
Roy and Das write that the incident reminded her that “her identity as a low-born concubine effaced the transcendence that she achieved as an actress. Thus, the theatre that found its existence with her aid was not given her name. The name ‘Star’ resounded with a perpetual insistence on her deprivation.”
A star parts ways
The first show at the old Star theatre was Daksha Jagna by Ghosh on July 21, 1883. From the very onset, it was clear that it was Binodini who drew the crowds. Her popularity as an actress peaked at Star. This included a visit from Ramakrishna Paramahansa, a revered Hindu religious guru in 19th-century Bengal. He came to Star to watch her perform the role of Chaitanya in Chaitanyaleela and left after blessing her backstage.
It was followed by visits from noted Indian authors and intellectuals in Bengal like Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and Swami Vivekananda, whose presence at Binodini’s performances at the theatre lent credence and deemed it socially acceptable at that time.
During the time she spent on stage, Binodini had performed in at least 90 roles in over 50 plays. But she was only able to remain with the grand theatre that she built, for over three years before social hostility and a lack of support from her mother and colleagues forced her to retire from the stage and Star when she was only 25.
Binodini was forced out of Star between 1886 and 1887. “When Gurmukh Rai proposed to bestow the theatre’s proprietorship on her, Girish Chandra Ghosh toiled hard to dissuade Binodini and her mother from undertaking the proprietorship. Her mentor’s indifference regarding her wellbeing was thus clear. Possibly, he could comprehend Binodini’s disenchantment with her theatre and her compatriots. Hence, Hemendranath Dasgupta holds: “Realizing Binodini’s mind, Girish Chandra taught her roles to another actress, Kiranmala. Thus, there was no real vacuum created on the stage after Binodini’s departure,” write Roy and Das.
New address, new look
A year after Binodini’s departure, Star theatre had a new address: 75/3, Cornwallis Street. Binodini’s biography My Story and My Life as an Actress, translated by Rimli Bhattacharya, mentions the new theatre. “The members of the original Star moved to a new location on Hathibagan Street (75/3 Cornwallis Street); the theatre that was subsequently built on that site is referred to as the ‘Hathibagan Star’…The cement building was planned by an engineer, Jogendranath Mitra, designed by Dharmadas Sur; and the gaslights (for the first time in the public theatre) provided by Messrs P.C. Mitra. Amritalal Basu was the chief shareholder and also the instructor for this company. Girishchandra continued to help the group by writing unsigned plays for them. The theatre was inaugurated with Nasiram in 1888. The Hathibagan Star burnt down in 1991 in what is believed to be a case of arson,” it reads.
As the new Star moved on, it began to attract European guests. That led to refurbishments like the adoption of incandescent electric lighting and carpeted staircases, box seats, lounges etc.
“A little bit of the wood from the stage that was there in the original Star Theatre was brought into this new theatre and put into this stage. Binodini used to come to this theatre in her old age and see plays,” says Bandyopadhyay, who has often performed on Star Theatre’s stage over his three-decade career as an actor.
The turbulence of the 1940s, with the Independence movement gaining momentum, the Bengal famine of 1943, and communal riots, meant that the theatres of Calcutta witnessed fewer spectators. The resulting financial struggles led to many of the city’s oldest theatres closing down, except for Star, Minerva, and a few others.
For the next several decades, Star theatre would nurture young theatre artists who would go on to become icons of Bengali theatre and cinema in their own right: Sabitri Chatterjee, Uttam Kumar, Prosenjit Chatterjee, among others.
Some of Bengal’s most iconic theatre artists were a part of Star’s history, says Bandyopadhyay, pointing to names like Ghosh, also known as the father of Indian theatre, Shishir Kumar Bhaduri, the pioneer of modern Bengali theatre, Nirmalendu Lahiri, Durgadas Bannerjee, Ahindra Choudhury, Prabhadevi, Sarajubala Devi etc.
“Star theatre is a part of mainstream theatre in Bengal, which was centred around Hatibagan,” says veteran theatre actor Neel Mukherjee. The Hatibagan neighbourhood, sometimes also called ‘theatre para’ got its name because of the many theatres that existed there.
Neel, the son of Bengali theatre icon Arun Mukherjee, remembers visiting Star as a 10-year-old school student to see a play that had Soumitra Chatterjee in its cast. “I remember going to the green room and meeting Feluda,” he says, referring to one of Chatterjee’s iconic roles.
Along with Star, some other iconic theatres included Bijan, Rangamahal, Rangana, etc. Today, with the exception of Star, most of Hatibagan’s original theatres have closed down with their buildings now being used for other purposes.
A fire, a ‘curse’ and a revival
In October 1991, just after dark, Star theatre went up in flames. There was a show of Ghatak Biday, with icons Soumitra Chatterjee and Madhabi Mukherjee in the cast. “I remember the last play that was held. The fire started just before the rehearsals for the next show were about to begin. A few of the youth from the nearby bylanes rushed to save the actors who had gone to the theatre to perform. Some say the theatre burned down due to Binodini’s curse,” says Bandyopadhyay.
Back then, there were also rumours that land sharks who had been eyeing the iconic property were responsible. The fire ravaged the theatre, leading to its closure until it was reopened in 2005. “After the fire, the interiors were fully changed. Only the exterior of the theatre was saved. Earlier, it was like a theatre but now it is very modern and the number of seats has been reduced. There were more seats when I used to perform. The stage and halls were bigger. These days, the green room is below and the stage is above. Now you have to climb one floor to go to the stage,” says Bandyopadhyay.
For the last two decades, Star has operated as a single-screen cinema hall with residents, college students and young professionals forming its main audience. In 2017, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation unveiled the Noty Binodini Memorial Art Gallery and Amphitheatre on the first floor of the theatre. It can accommodate approximately 300 people and allows for theatre performances and film screenings.
Every month, plays are staged on two days, with the frequency increasing in the December-January period.
Following the announcement to rename the theatre as Binodini, traces of its former name are being slowly done away with. Its iconic blue flag that said ‘Star’ now reads ‘Binodini’ in Bengali. The cosmetic changes have not impressed Neel though. “Cinema and theatre cannot happen together,” says Neel, who is a part of the cast of Binodini Opera, a music-based drama that pays homage to the life and work of Binodini, with Neel playing the role of Rai and Sudipta Chakraborty as Binodini.
“Binodini Dasi got her name to be honoured after so many years. She was a prima donna of Bengal’s theatre. It is a good gesture (to name Star after her), but if it remains a cinema hall then it is not giving her proper respect,” he adds, appealing for Star’s return to its original form as a full-fledged theatre, instead of a cinema hall.