A couple of heavyweights in Bengali theatre experimented this year with hour-length one-acts instead of their standard full-fledged repertoire. Both Nandikar and Chetana coincidentally attempted three-handers on relationships featuring two
Kolkata Centre for Creativity’s AMI Arts Festival reached a theatrical high with two mainstage productions from Mumbai, both on illustrious personalities of 20th-century music: The Company Theatre’s Taking Sides, about
Kolkata Centre for Creativity looks poised to take over the mantle of our city’s national theatre festival by expanding its AMI Arts Festival from its home location to utilize regular
There are two ways of assessing 7:40 ki Ladies Special by Aawara Theatre Group (Mumbai, presented in Kolkata by Sanskriti Sagar), in terms of social inclusivity, and in terms of
Ujjwal Chattopadhyay’s twin pack on progenitors of early 19th-century Bengali music and theatre definitely illuminates a past largely unknown to the general public. On the downside, however, he persists in
Violence—global and local—forms an unsettling theme in the latest productions by two primarily Hindi-language groups, Padatik / rikh- and The Creative Arts Academy. Vinay Sharma loves to send me scurrying
For a Hindi–Urdu theatre group in Kolkata to sustain continuous activity for three decades signifies dedication and resilience against all odds. I felicitate Little Thespian on reaching the milestone of
At KCC’s laudable birth-centenary homage to Habib Tanvir, two world premieres expressed through their art what most of the speakers did not dare to mention specifically in the most important
Kalyani continues to provide fertile ground for new Bengali productions. While Mukhosh’s resident dramatist-director offers another original play, Kalamandalam bases their latest dramatization on Manik Bandyopadhyay. Ayan Banerjee’s Solver features
Tiner Taloyār remains the best drama ever written about the Bengali commercial stage, therefore any revival must treat it with obeisance. Suman Mukhopadhyay does just that—except for an aberrant epilogue—and
The Padatik ensemble touches top form collectively on the latest productions in their two ongoing series, the literary Writers on Stage and the informal Theatre in Jeans. Beparwāh Manto celebrates
Any group and director realize what a challenge staging a Shakespeare classic poses. Inevitable comparisons with previous productions and the plethora of critical interpretations complicate the matter, exemplified by the
