Making people aware and rise with a laugh
INVC NEWS
New Delhi,
Stage became a medium to convey and portray different political and social scenario with a tinge of satire when Ashanti Niwas (Dir. Mayengbam Sunil Singh), Richard III (Dir. Guy Roberts), and Tughlaq (Dir. Bharti Sharma) took the centre stage. The plays made people aware about what is going around them with making them laugh. Since a very long-time voices from theatre have been raised to resonate with the public; making them aware, rise against the evils and make them aware about their rights.
Meet the Director
In the event Meet the Director four plays were discussed, Richard III (Dir. Guy Roberts), Ashanti Niwas (Dir. Mayengbam Sunil Singh), Tughlaq (Dir. Bharti Sharma) and The Old Man (Dir. Sahidul Haque). Directors and the Cast of respective plays took the dais to discussed the hardships they encountered while producing the plays and their take on the literature that inspired or gave soul to their play. While indulging into the topic of literature, The Old Man director elaborated on his thinking of the Ernest Hemingway’s classic The Old Man and the Sea. When he was questioned on his choice of selecting a river to represent a sea, he held that, “I believe in the area near the river Brahmaputra there is lesser civilization and its hard to find any sign of same too. So, I believe that the lack of sea has been cured by it.” The meet thus explains that the adaptations reflect where a director comes from what he or she recognises themselves as and with.
Youth Forum
Voices were raised from the National School of Drama by Sri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC), Institute of Innovation in Technology (IINTM) and Management and Lakshmi Bai College. While the dramatics society of SRCC educated the masses on Financial Literacy, IINTM came with their production unloading and Lakshmi Bai College with their Education System.
Today’s Play
BHIKARI NAMA
Bhikari Nama is a musical play based on Bhikhari Thakur’s life and his contribution to theatre. The play is broadly divided into four parts, each exploring one phase of his life. The first part presents his childhood, seamlessly moving into the section exploring his youth where Bhikhari Thakur narrates his life and talks about his marriage and his migration to Bengal in search of livelihood. He continues to work as a barber, his caste profession, in Bengal and also takes a keen interest in the Ramleela performances. Not too long after that, he returns to his village and starts putting up Ramleela performances. The next segment shows how Bhikhari Thakur goes on to set up his own theatre troupe, writing plays that go on to be wildly popular.
BANJARA (BHAVAI)
A Banjarafamily istravelling from village to village for trade. The children are thirsty after a long walk. Once they approach a village, Banjarangoes to a pond in the village to fill water for drinking. The village sarpanchrefuses to allow her to take the water for free.Banjaran calls her husband Banjara, who convinces the Sarpanch that watercannotbe sold.It is a gift given equally to all by nature. The Sarpanch finally agrees to him.
DAMINI HAY
Damini Hay is an elaborate and symbolic portrayal of how a woman stricken by poverty remains unburdened by it. The play is a tribute to a woman’s inner strength and ability to rise above problems such as grinding poverty. The situation of the play is a poverty-stricken, out-of-the-way village of Bengal where hunger, exploitation, greed, and deception reign unbridled, and the poorest subalterns living there grow-up believing everything is an unchangeable lot.
KHWAHISH GALI
The seed of this play was planted during the site visit of G.B. Road (now Shraddhanand Marg), and was nurtured by the news and facts i.e. real incidents which were fictionalized and merged with the geography and social fabric of the site. This gave rise to the characters of the play, whose stories were intertwined by the dramaturgy team. The visual references were drawn from works of many new media and visual artists. The narrative was conceptualized by the playwright in the form of blogs written by the protagonist Baidehi Chandola, which reach us through a web journalist Meeta, thus unbuttoning the repercussions on the residence of ‘Khwahish Gali’, a destination of desire and a dead-end to love, according to Baidehi.
