Shekhar Chatterjee

Chatterjee was born in Kolkata in 1924. He began his career in the Bengali theatre in the 1950s. He was associated with a number of leftist theatre groups, including the Communist Party's Indian People's Theatre Association, Utpal Dutt's Little Theatre Group, and Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop, as well as his own group, Theatre Unit, which he formed in 1958. As a stage actor he was well known for his Shakespearean roles and for playing Shardul Singh in Dutt's 1965 play Kallol. His directorial work focused on works by German-language playwrights Bertold Brecht, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Peter Handke, and Franz Xaver Kroetz. Chatterjee's Brecht productions were rarely adapted to a local setting, and while critics unanimously praised this approach as "authentic", his colleague Dutt attacked it for failing to communicate Brecht's political symbolism to an Indian audience.

Chatterjee was also active in Bengali, Indian and world cinema, having acted in nearly a hundred films by the time he was sixty. Among his first credited roles was in Agradoot's 1955 film noir Sabar Uparey; he later had memorable roles in several of Mrinal Sen's films, including Bhuvan Shome, Ek Adhuri Kahani, Chorus, and Mrigayaa. His biggest international role was that of Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy in Richard Attenborough's biographical epic Gandhi. Casting director Dolly Thakore recommended Chatterjee for the role after seeing him onstage in Calcutta and noting that he shared Suhrawardy's large stature.

In 1983, Chatterjee directed the film Vasundhara, which was awarded as best Bengali film at the 31st National Film Awards. The Directorate of Film Festivals cited it for "its sincere attempt to depict the struggle against social injustice".

{{Reflist|refs=

{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=Indiancine.ma |title=Interview (Mrinal Sen) |url=https://indiancine.ma/NWP/info |access-date=2015-04-20 |publisher=Pad.ma }}

{{cite journal |last=Bharucha |first=Rustom |date=1983 |title=Beyond Brecht: Political Theatre in Calcutta |url=http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/German/German-idx?type=turn&entity=German.BrechtYearbook011.p0076&id=German.BrechtYearbook011&isize=M |journal=The Brecht Yearbook |publisher=Wayne State University Press |volume=11 |pages=72–90 |access-date=2015-04-20}}

{{cite news |last1=Das |first1=Mohua |last2=Roy |first2=Priyanka |title=Gandhi did not come to Calcutta… |url=http://www.telegraphindia.com/1140826/jsp/nation/story_18761938.jsp |archive-url=https://archive.today/20150420094710/http://www.telegraphindia.com/1140826/jsp/nation/story_18761938.jsp |url-status=dead |archive-date=20 April 2015 |newspaper=The Telegraph |date=2014-08-26 |access-date=2015-04-20 }}

{{cite book |date=June 1984 |title=31st National Film Festival |url=http://dff.nic.in/2011/31st_nff_1984.pdf |publisher=Directorate of Film Festivals, National Film Development Corporation Limited |pages=21 |access-date=2015-04-20 }}

}}

• {{IMDb name|0154161}}

{{Bengali theatre}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chatterjee, Shekhar}}

Category:1920s births

Category:1990 deaths

Category:20th-century Indian male actors

Category:Bengali male actors

Category:Bengali theatre personalities

Category:Film directors from Kolkata

Category:Indian male film actors

Category:Indian male stage actors

Category:Indian theatre directors

Category:Male actors from Kolkata

Category:Male actors in Bengali cinema

Category:Male actors in Hindi cinema

Category:Male Shakespearean actors

Category:Recipients of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award