Collegians usually earn their theatre spurs by interpreting existing plays – as in the 11th national Atelier Campus Theatre Festival and the latest production by Dramatically Correct, though all of these stopped short of the 60-minute barrier, which meant that they didn’t really test their abilities to the fullest.
Although Nandikar’s 36th National Festival noticed a significant depletion in entries from outside Kolkata, the few new productions displayed some merit, besides Parvathy Baul’s electrifying 90-minute nonstop solo singing in Ekathara Kalari’s Rādhā-bhāb, of traditional Krishna lore learnt from Sanatan Das Baul. My first exposure to Rasikata (Khardah) arouses lots
Bengali theatre’s deep-seated leftist politics resurfaces with uneven results in three productions from outside the city. Bandel Arohi’s Rāt Kato Holo leaves the strongest impact precisely because it treats the subject with fragility rather than heavy-handedly. Amitabha Chakrabarti, their accomplished yet low-profile resident dramatist, writes of estranged brothers who meet
Two all-women productions brought to our attention once again the discrimination faced by Indian womankind in epic literature and modern society. Both traversed well-trodden ground in contemporary theatre, therefore one must assess them from the perspective of originality rather than material. The Creative Arts’ The Dice of Desire took about
In an encouraging development for inter-metropolis theatrical interaction, Atelier Repertory Company of Delhi exchanged visits with our own Padatik under a joint initiative named Sanjh, bringing down two productions directed by Kuljeet Singh in Hindi and Urdu this week. Kuchh Afsane delivered the greater punch, as Atelier dramatized six of
Once again theatre demonstrated its expression of more probing and immediate political content than other art forms – this time via two productions from the Hindi belt (therefore more courageous) at Little Thespian’s national Jashn-e-Rang, fast becoming a platform for idealistic dissent. Both of them deserve a callback to stimulate
Jashn-e-Rang opened with plenty of sound and fury, two consecutive evenings featuring Hindi productions of a famous Marathi reworking of King Lear and an adaptation of Goethe’s Faust. V. V. Shirwadkar’s Nat-Samrat has always won standing ovations since Shreeram Lagoo created the titular role in 1970, and Ekrang (Bhopal) proved
Festival season for the performing arts has returned. Little Thespian, who turn 25 this year, inaugurate their national Jashn-e-Rang on Sunday. Uma Jhunjhunwala wrote and directed their latest play Hazaran Khwahishan, an original musical romance based on Rajasthani folk stories and styles. The dreams of a pair of village lovers
Bengali theatregoers have the opportunity at present to compare Mohan Rakesh’s Hindi classics from the 1960s in translation, in productions running concurrently. His third and final completed play before his premature death, Ādhe-adhure, has become Ādhā Adhure in the Shohan version, while his second, Lahron ke Rājhans, turns into Laharir
After many years, the Greek myth of Medea returns to the Bengali stage. Under Tapanjyoti Das’s direction, Rangapat have specialized in luxuriant spectacles of historical India; now their first foray into Western tragedy makes a meaningful impact. This achievement partly derives from Euripides’ classic itself, a major modern site for
With seven productions in its current repertoire, Chakdah Natyajan has become a veritable conveyor belt of Bengali theatre, an enviable organizational phenomenon for a group located in the suburbs. The brain behind this enterprise, Suman Paul, has managed to curate the widest variety of drama in the shortest span, from
Three shorter (hour-length) local interpretations of Tagore cover a range of theatrical activities. Shilpi Sangha’s Birpurush arose from a workshop for Howrah high-schoolers, who impress not just with their moving performance but also their original script. Co-authors Rajarshi Dhara and Swapnojoy Ganguly write about a boy who misses his father,
