An Inspector Calls: a riveting drawing room play

DOT Desk
British playwright JB Priestley’s classic play ‘An Inspector Calls’, which is set in 1912, seems to be equally haunting and riveting after all these years, reports The New Age. The play is still a sensible and important reminder that not much has changed in the last one hundred or so years regarding the fate of the working class people.
Produced by Jatrik, an arts management and production company, the play is running at Dr Nilima Ibrahim Auditorium of Bangladesh Mahila Samity.
The play has already had three shows on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, while four more shows will be held on Friday and Saturday.
The play, adapted and directed by Naila Azad, revolves around events of one evening in 2012 in a fictional city in Bangladesh. The ordinary evening of banter and celebration in a wealthy Borhania family, which owns a number of apparel factories, is interrupted by the visit of a mysterious police inspector. Through interrogation, the inspector, who is inquiring about the suicide of a female apparel factory worker, unravels the real faces of the family members and takes the audience on a reflective journey.
Baizid Haque Joardar, Iresh Zaker, Mitul Mahmud, Priyam Sarker, Samina Luthfa, Shakil Ahmed, Toufikul Islam Emon and Wasi Noor Azam act in the English play.
Being a drawing room play, the play depends heavily on the story and the actors and both these factors grip the audience.
The story is transfixing and filled with suspense, while the actors are brilliant in essaying the roles.
The play hooks the audience right from the beginning where the apparel worker is shown committing suicide by swallowing a large amount of carbolic acid. Her screams set the tune of the play which eventually reveals how the suicide is just not a simple case of suicide, but a murder.
The inspector named Jinnah, enacted by Iresh Zaker, enters the lavish drawing room of the industrialist and member of the parliament Arshad Borhania, who is having a family party celebrating his daughter’s engagement to Jewed Khan, son of another business tycoon.
The inspector then goes on to a series of interrogations revealing how each of the family members has pushed the girl to commit suicide. With the help of a diary of the dead girl, who used multiple names and did multiple jobs to survive, the inspector unravels that her suicide was triggered by events which she could not control.
The girl used to work in one of Arshad’s factories and was fired as she, along with others, demanded a decent wage; she had to lose her next job at a shop as Arshad’s daughter complained about her out of envy as she (the poor salesgirl) looked prettier than Arshad’s daughter on a particular sari.
The girl then, by accident, became the mistress of Jewed Khan, who eventually ditched her. Arshad’s son Ejaz, who has a drinking problem, makes the life of the girl wretched one more time impregnating her, while the welfare association, chaired by Arshad’s wife, throws the girl out when she went there for help.
Revealing how each of the family members is responsible in forcing the girl to commit suicide, the inspector subtly raises the question whether this suicide is not a structural murder by the society and the system.
The play does not end here but continues to give a tinge of supernatural elements taking audience for a surprise end.
‘This play gives food for thought about inequality in the class system which is ruled by the size of wealth. It is a criticism of the moral hypocrisies of the capitalist society, and, despite it being written about a hundred years ago it is still relevant in today’s context,’ said Naila Azad, director of the play.