Bhubaneswar, Sept. 29: The Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi is organising a five-day theatre festival at Jayadev Sadan in Paradip.

The fest began on September 26 with a play by Bhubaneswar-based theatre troupe Natya Chetana.

The play Aabu, based on a story written by Manoj Das, deals with the ill effects of greed for money and fame among the people. This is one of the most popular productions of the group and was first staged in 1996. They had recently renovated the play and staged it at the fest.

"A lot of changes have been made to make the play more appealing. We have made use of mask as a communicator along with making changes in the setting," said director Subodh Patnaik.

The play will also be staged at various northeastern states, including Assam, Meghalaya and Sikkim, in October.

On the second day, a play by city-based theatre troupe Uttar Purush was staged. The play titled Sita was directed by Abhinna Routray and written by Rati Mishra.

A number of plays by theatre troupes such as Swosti Jhankar from Rourkela, Ragesri Nilayam from Nayagarh and so on will stage their plays at the festival.

The fest will conclude with a play by Paradip-based theatre troupe Canmass. Their production Chandramara Chudi is based on a play written by author Ramakant Rath.

"So far, the turnout has been quite good. People here take a lot of interest in theatre, and we hope to organise more such festivals here," said akademi secretary Dhira Mallick.

The academy has recently been organising a number of festivals at various places across the state with an aim to shift the focus from Bhubaneswar as the culture capital.

"Most of the major festival have always been organised in the state capital. We will now regularly organise theatre fests in various rural districts and invite the local troupes to perform, so that they get the required exposure," said Mallick.

While a two-day summer festival was organised at Titilagarh in Balangir, a Megha Utsav in Angul and a Sita Utsav in Daringabadi were also conducted.

This apart, the akademy had scheduled a five-day theatre festival in the city with performances by troupes from the western districts in October.