Quite by chance, two educational bodies staged big-budget amateur English-language productions in May of originally-composed spiritual drama, Hindu and Christian respectively: Krishnei’s Krishna by Chinmaya Mission Study Group and The
Our unique Sanskrit troupe, Chidakash Kalalay, now has its own space tastefully constructed in an indigenous manner by Anubha Fatehpuria and Richa Bose, in Boral just south of Kolkata, where
A sudden and inexplicable, yet most welcome, surge of interest in Utpal Dutt’s plays ignited Bengali theatre before Covid struck. Lockdown paused these productions, which have now returned, frequently house-full,
Among the groups that rehearsed through the lockdown, Shohan not only staged one new play in early 2021 but premiered another towards the end of the year. The productions form
Padatik / rikh-, like several other groups, have revived their interrupted pre-pandemic productions as well as mounted a brand-new play. Vinay Sharma’s two-hander titled Dosh features Mumbai actors Harsh Khurana
Naye Natua is among those Bengali groups partial to classics, and like Kathakriti, revived dramatic masterpieces both before and after the lockdown, maintaining a
Nandipat’s Narir Mancha this year spotlighted productions by women directors, as many as eleven of them. Among these, the two of longest duration dealt with cataclysmic traumas affecting humanity, not
The pandemic has given new meaning to existentialism, particularly the bleak, socially isolated world of Beckett where we simply await death, which hovers backstage, unseen but omnipresent. Understandably, Kolkata theatre
A few of the more active Bengali groups have not only rebooted the paused run of their pre-lockdown plays but mounted brand-new productions already. One of them, Kathakriti, shows director
In my last review, I praised Natadha’s Mahābhārat2 for concentrating on just one Parva of the epic. This time I must heap accolades on another take (from the Adi Parva)
When Natadha staged their Mahābhārat in 2002 with leading actors from other groups, I had commented that the compression could not possibly do justice to the sweep of the epic.
