Perchance to Dream... in performanceMembers of Footsbarn Travelling Theatre in the city on Thursday. Picture by Aranya Sen

For father and daughter, it?s a dream come true. Which means having Footsbarn Travelling Theatre perform as part of the Prithvi Theatre Festival after 10 long years. A decade ago, the European company had put up Romeo & Juliet on the Calcutta stage.

On February 13 and 14, Footsbarn will stage Perchance to Dream..., hosted by cellphone service provider Hutch in association with Seagull Foundation for the Arts, at GD Birla Sabhagar.

?I like Footsbarn a lot, because it?s very much like Shakespearana (Geoffrey Kendal?s theatre company). They travel, they do Shakespeare and they take international artistes, just like Shakespearana,? said Shashi Kapoor on Thursday, happy to be back in his ?favourite city? along with daughter Sanjna, who has painstakingly stitched together the seven-city tour.

After Mumbai, Heggodu and Bangalore, and now Calcutta, Footsbarn journeys to Chennai, Delhi and Thiruvananthapuram.

On Thursday afternoon, the Footsbarn members gathered at Uma Gallery, off Sarat Bose Road, to present a preview of the play to a select audience, which included the Kapoors.

Comprising some chosen scenes from five Shakespeare plays ? Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night?s Dream and King Lear ? Perchance to Dream... blends a variety of forms, from burlesque to the use of masks, shadow theatre, mime, music, song and dance.

?We have woven the five plays together to show the seven ages of man,? said Joe Cunningham, a member of Footsbarn. Perchance to Dream... has eight actors and two musicians. Footsbarn has been globe-trotting since the Eighties, with a rich repertoire of 69 productions.

?We are, you can say, a little partial towards Shakespeare. We have nine of his works. The rest are Moliere, Steinbeck, Garcia Marquez, Gogol, Boulgakov and others,? said Paddy Hayter, another member who, along with Cunningham, has been with Footsbarn for the past 30 years. ?The Tempest is on the shelf now; we are working on it,? he added.

In southern France, where it is based, the company has converted an old farm into a permanent site with a studio for rehearsals, a 600-seater tent and provisions for summer workshops. ?We will try and bring the tent next time,? said Hayter.

Footsbarn has often composed its productions while travelling across the continents, which has resulted in the infusion of nuances from diverse traditions of performing arts. The company that travels seven to eight months a year had produced L?Odyssee during a visit to Thiruvananthapuram a decade ago.

According to Sanjna, Footsbarn has given a lot in return, recruiting performers from south India on one of its earlier visits.

The performers, usually selected from the workshops held by the company, include a Polish violinist and a Russian percussionist. ?We also have a Japanese performer in Perchance to Dream... who brings in elements of her tradition. There?s also an artiste from Kerala. The idea is to have different cultures play together, not to present the native forms accurately,? said Cunningham. While retaining the basic elements of theatre, all these give an international flavour to the troupe and its acts.

Through the workshops, Footsbarn intends to give ?a taste of its approach to theatre? to the foreign participants. One of the aspects that makes the company stand out from others is the presence of a chorus, a fixture in all its productions.

?The chorus forms the basis. It builds up a play with a group of people who may be transformed into a character or a prop later... In King Lear they become the storm,? Hayter explained.

But the aim remains to break out of the proscenium. And hence, the tent. In Chennai, Perchance to Dream? will be performed outdoors as opposed to the confines of GD Birla Sabhagar in Calcutta.

?Hosting the production in Calcutta is an extension of the Odeon theatre festival. We want to be associated with Prithvi Theatre Festival because both the mediums strive to connect people,? said S. Murli, assistant vice-president, marketing and sales, Hutch Calcutta.