Kolkata, 13th March 2018 : Drawing a close to the fortnight-long celebration Kolkata today bid a farewell to the biggest theatre festival in the world, held in India for the first time.
Kolkata hosted 21 plays since 27th February 2018, bringing an eclectic range of international, regional, English, and Hindi plays to the audience. The play staged on the last day was ‘Pyramus & Thisby’, a bilingual English-Hindi play by directed Jehan Aloysius. The play is a Sri Lankan production and an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream set in low-country Sri Lanka. ‘Pyramus & Thisby’ blends traditional narrative techniques of the country such as fusion-dance, music, mask rituals, acrobatics and physical comedy with Shakespeare’s most lyrical play.
As the cultural heartland, West Bengal boats of a rich tradition in theatre in both cities and rural areas. While cities such as Kolkata propel group theatres, ‘jatra’ and ‘pala gaan’ performed in rural areas boost folk theatre forms. The Theatre Olympics festival in Kolkata also staged three specially invited plays such as ‘Videshiya’ (Sanjay Upadhyay), ‘Lehron Ke Rajhans’ (Jahan Ara Begum), and ‘Jug Jug Jiyo’ (Dolly Ahluwalia). International productions performed in the city included ‘Punishment’ (Mehriban Alakbarzada, Azerbaijan), ‘Morshokam’ (Rokeya Rafique Baby, Bangladesh), ‘The World Around 80 Boxes’ (Markline, Spain), ‘Romeo & Juliet’ (Mukul Ahmed, the UK), and ‘Compassion: The History Of Machine Gun’ (Friedrich Barner and Tobias Veit, Germany).
National productions from across India were also performed during the festival. ‘The Journey of Sarrow’ (Joy Maisnam), ‘Flesh’ (Kaushik Bose), ‘Chitrangada’ (Ranjana Gauhar), ‘Copenhagen’ (Dr. Sharad Bhuthadia), ‘Kasumal Sapno’ (Ajeet Singh Palawat), ‘Sampurna Raas Leela’ (Basanta Kumar Baruah), ‘Katthoklaba Shamu’ (Ningomban Jadumani Singh), ‘Brahannalai’ (N. Muthuswamy), ‘Nungsirabi Abem’ (Iboyaima Ktthman), ‘Keishumshang Gee Nupi (Prisoned Women)’ (Heisnam Tomba), ‘A Far Cry’ (Ningthouja Deepak), and ‘Loha Kutt’ (Sudesh Sharma).
Apart from the plays, Kolkata also hosted the allied activities scheduled as a part of the festival. Earlier this month, Kolkata hosted a national seminar on ‘Time, Historicity & Memory’ with multiple sub-topics such as ‘The Idea and Treatment of Time in Theatre’, ‘Three Unities in Context of Theatre’, ‘Need, Limitation, & Modes of Archiving’, and ‘Tangible and Intangible in Cognition & Memory’. Dr. Trina Banerjee, Shri Arun Mukherjee, Shri Satish Alekar, Prof. Ananda Lal along with others attended the two-day seminar. Famous theatre actor Mr. Chapal Kumar Bhaduri was the guest at the ‘Master Class’ session while classical singer Ms. Rita Ganguly and Bharatanatyam exponent Saroja Vaidyanathan graced the sessions of ‘Living Legend’.
After traveling in other 16 cities, the festival will culminate on 8th April 2018 in Mumbai.
