Nandikar’s 32nd National Festival saw a marked increase in local participation by Bengali groups: 13 of the 22 shows on display. Budgetary constraints forced the reduction of visiting troupes, which

Among the new shows from outside that visited Nandikar’s National Theatre Festival, Wings Theatre’s Helen heralded a young Assamese group that we should look out for in future. Led by

The year-old Rabindra Bharati Theatre Repertory has come into its own with Phāgun Rāter Gappo, from Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. Soumitra Basu’s new translation does not distort the source while

For the second year running, Happenings commissioned youth and university theatre from all over south Asia to join its Rabindra Utsav. I cannot recall any festival in Kolkata with participation

With unerring perspicacity over the last few years, Dwijen Bandyopadhyay of Samstab has selected works that comment on our sociopolitical conditions, often from foreign sources. He has done it again,

Desire and the tragedies that result from indulging it, and equally from repressing it, formed the theme of two early 20th-century classics that revisited local theatre after a decade. Ha-ja-ba-ra-la,

For a consummate actor like Ustad Naseeruddin Shah, Motley’s solo Einstein should not have caused great pains in the preparation. Let me take the musical analogy of Ustadship further. In

Nandikar’s extramural programme rolls on at full pace. They have joined a select few in Bengali and English theatre to work in correctional institutions and present public productions of these

This week’s column looks at new biodramas on two neglected figures in Bengal’s history, but at the outset we pay respect to a man who preferred to remain unlit in

Almost as if timed for election season, two plays sourced from Malayalam and Bengali stories respectively focus on the creation of political figures. Both follow similar upswings in the fortunes