Barring a few exceptions, the annual theatre festivals wearing a ‘national’ tag are fast losing their pan-Indian character in West Bengal. Many expected that the Calcutta leg of Bharat Rang Mahotsav, the annual showcase of Indian theatre hosted by the National School of Drama, would feature only outstation groups. It did not happen, and local groups, save for one, filled the list. However, the 8th National Theatre Festival organised by Minerva Natya Sanskriti Charcha Kendra invited as many as 10 groups from outside the state, keeping its reputation intact. Although Maharashtra and Assam continue to rule the Minerva list and their output is mostly in line with expectations, Natyabhumi from Agartala (Tripura) sprang a surprise this year, staging a magnificent adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Othello.
Rangeen Rumal (picture, top), as the production is titled, is so rooted in the geopolitics of the Northeast in the 17th century that one should congratulate Sanjoy Kar, the playwright-director, for achieving this wonderful feat. Kar takes some liberties with history, inserting situations and characters here and there and underplaying the racial angle to some extent to produce a delightful Indianisation of an otherwise Italian setting. Natyabhumi’s recent forays into period dramas rooted in indigenous performance traditions (Raima Saima and Raj Atithi come to mind) certainly helped it pull off this challenging task. The ritual elements were dealt with care and the combat scenes were executed in accordance with martial dance forms unique to the region. The minimalist set and costumes stitched to regional cuts and designs added to the effect. Despite some issues with articulating the ruthlessness of the villain and the gullibility of the tragic hero, the young cast members put their best foot forward.
Collaborations between states are producing some exciting results of late. It Is You, jointly produced by Our Theatre Collective (Bengaluru) and Kalakshetra (Manipur), was recently staged at Bichitra, Gobardanga. Created and performed by Vivek Vijayakumaran and Pangambam Tyson Meitei, this non-verbal piece with minimum involvement of background score is an engrossing two-hander featuring actors trained under Heisnam Kanhailal and inspired by the aesthetics of Badal Sircar’s innovative style. Faintly reminiscent of Waiting for Godot, this 45-minute-long piece is like visual poetry with the human body as its chief instrument. The theme is the eternal struggle for existence that robs humans of their humane qualities till they realise their mistakes. It Is You succeeds in making us feel vulnerable from within.
Monologues have quickly adapted to the recent shifts in performance spaces like the cosy amphitheatre within Kolkata Centre for Creativity. Last weekend, it saw two stagings of Ekjute Theatre Group’s Ek Lamhaa Zindagi: A Love Story 1938-1979 (picture, bottom) — Juhi Babbar Soni’s tribute to her maternal grandparents, Sajjad Zaheer and Razia Sajjad Zaheer. Soni, playing her own grandmother, digs into family history, letters and anecdotes to pen a moving drama registering the winds of change blowing through the subcontinent before and after 1947. Zaheer’s involvement with the Communist Party of India and his role in shaping the Bombay chapter of the Progressive Writers’ Association that brought the most prominent names of Hindi and Urdu literature together were duly addressed. How his unorthodox ways were accepted and then supported by his writer wife — who also braved a conservative mother-in-law to bring up three children — were dealt with in considerable detail. Soni used shayaris and songs to soothing effect and moved with ease among the heavily stuffed period furniture, keeping the audience glued to the seats for a good 90 minutes.