 |
 |
| Students of DBMS Kadma High School bring alive the characters of A Christmas Carol and (above) enact a scene. Pictures by Bhola Prasad |
Pip, Joe Gargery, Miss Havisham, Estella, Ebenezer Scoorge, Jacob Marley and of course, the ghosts — characters from the Victorian era took over the stage at Tata auditorium for three days from December 6 to December 8.
Students of DBMS English School and DBMS Kadma High School celebrated Charles Dickens’ 200th birth anniversary by enacting two of his most famous works — Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol — in an abridged form. While DBMS English School staged Great Expectations, students of DBMS Kadma High School enacted A Christmas Carol. Both the plays were of one hour’s duration each.
While on the first day, that is December 6, the plays were enacted for students of DBMS English School and DBMS Kadma High School, about 20 schools were invited for the performances on the second day. The final shows on December 8 were meant for guests and guardians.
Chairperson of DBMS group of schools Bhanumathi Neelakantan first came up with the idea of acting out the stories on stage to pay tribute to one of the greatest authors of all times. A mammoth team of 80 students from both the schools had been rehearsing the plays since October.
“As it is the 200th birth anniversary of Charles Dickens, the DBMS group wanted to showcase two plays based on his works. We chose Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol as these are two of the most popular stories written by him. The idea was to familiarise the students with Dickens and the literature of that time,” said Rajani Shekhar, principal of DBMS English School.
Great Expectations is the story of Pip, an orphan who is adopted by a blacksmith. Pip has both luck and great expectations, but loses both. However, he learns how to find happiness through the travails of life.
A Christmas Carol, which is a novella, is the story of Ebenezer Scoorge, who is a miser and considers money as the most important thing in life till three ghosts visit him and take him on a journey of past, present and future. In due course, Scoorge not only understands the value of love, family and life, but becomes a more humane, changed person.
“Today’s children are taken in by television, Internet and mobile phones and are far removed from the world of theatre and reading. The purpose of presenting abridged versions of the stories as plays was to motivate them about reading,” said Shekhar.
|
