Kolkata

As freedom of expression and the rise of autocratic rule grip people across the world, senior Bengali playwright Chandan Sen talks about the growing issues through his play. The last show of the play was held on Thursday (August 6, 2026) at the prestigious Lalit Kala Academy of Kolkata in the Rabindra Sadan area.

Mr Sen, who himself spent several days behind bars during his youth for speaking out against the system through his art, said the crackdown on art and freedom of expression was crippling everyone in society.

Drama “A hero-er the rest of the night” (Ek Hero Ki Aakhri Raat) has had many shows across the country. It is set in a fictional place called “Blue Land”, where a military dictator’s last night is revealed through drama before he is shot and killed by the government that replaces him. But over the course of the play’s 1 hour 35 minutes, the audience also realizes that the “democratically elected” government coming to replace the military regime is similarly fascist, but with better clothing and better verbal expression.

“This play is inspired by everything happening around us around the world; the dictator doesn’t believe in education, he cracks down on institutions; he tries to rewrite history… These are things we are seeing in our everyday lives,” Mr Sen told THe is Hindu.

According to Tapan Biswas, a senior drama actor, theater groups like his are suffering from severe budget crunch, and the lack of support or concessions from any government has left them in trouble. Mr. Biswas said, “We all have to compromise our freedom of expression due to fear of action. We have to add gimmicks and gimmicks to get more viewers and survive.”

Mr. Biswas recalled his youthful days as theater artistes, when neither artists nor writers shied away from making their art political and showing people the mirror of society.

West Bengal has given birth to legendary playwrights like Badal Sarkar, Utpal Dutta and many others who spoke truth to power through their plays. Mr Sen says people of Bengal used to stand in long queues to get tickets for his plays, which talked about politics, society, justice, human life and atrocities of the state, but those days are gone. He says that now if he spends around ₹60,000 for a play, he barely earns ₹20,000 through ticket sales.

“We have to pay the rest from our own pockets to sustain this art for the love of the art,” says the 82-year-old playwright.