 "\"The Wild\", by Walkabout Theatre Company")
The previous edition of Bharat Rang Mahotsav showcased a series of firsts. Parallel festivals were held in Agartala, Jabalpur, Aurangabad and Panaji; the "Living Legend" series was instituted; a "Theatre Bazar" was set up; and online ticketing was introduced. This year, the focus is on sustaining the initiatives that were launched last year, while testing new ideas related to stagecraft and storytelling. It is to celebrate this new approach to the craft that the National School of Drama (NSD) has come up with the theme, "Rediscover the Magic of Theatre", for the 18th edition of the festival.
"It is about all styles and formats that bring back the magic of theatre in each of its incarnations," says Waman Kendre, director, NSD. "Be it a traditional form of theatre or the contemporary, ancient or modern, there should be a new approach towards engaging the audience." Keeping this vision in mind, Kendre and his team shortlisted 80 plays - 15 international and 65 Indian - from a list of 469 to participate in the 21-day festival. There are plays from the United States, Australia, Italy, Sri Lanka, Poland, Bangladesh, Spain, China, Pakistan and Austria, with theatre personalities such as Corinne Maier (Switzerland), Qurban Ali (Afghanistan), Sampath Perera (Sri Lanka) and Anna Dora (Italy) sharing the stage with Indian practitioners such as M K Raina, Pankaj Kapur, Paresh Rawal, Saurabh Shukla and Heisnam Kanhailal.
The festival opens with Ratan Thiyam's Macbeth, which deals with the ideas of war and a craving for peace - a recurring theme in the director's plays in the past. In the current creation, Macbeth is a metaphor for a disease that's ailing a society fraught with desire, greed and violence.
The other performance to look forward to is The Wild, by American group Walkabout Theatre Company. It's not your regular play; it's a devised laboratory theatre performance, inspired by the myth of Dionysus, which explores what happens when institutions crumble and deities fall.
This edition is all about finding newer ways to address a subject, and Pune-based Mohit Takalkar has tried to do just that in F-1/105. A story of a neighbourhood in a cosmopolitan locality, the play is in Marathi, with splashes of English, Hindi and Gujarati thrown in. Using one colour - in this case, green - Takalkar has explored societal hierarchies and individual frustrations within the cultural spheres of urban society.
Keeping the parallel festivals going, this year, too, the festival will travel to Jammu, Bhubaneswar, Ahmedabad and Trivandrum, where six plays will be held at each venue between February 3 and 14. At NSD, too, a platform is being created for artists from remote areas. More than 300 ambience performances will be held at the venues in Delhi.
"The 'Living Legend' series continues. It offers an opportunity to have a personal interaction with some of the biggest names in theatre. We have Kapila Vatsayayan, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Sonal Mansingh, Indira Parthasarathy and Jabbar Patel in this edition," says Kendre. In order to create a more enriching experience for theatre enthusiasts, a series of seminars and lectures have been added to the schedule, one such being the "World Theatre Forum", where speakers will discuss the theme of the festival.
"A new thing that we have launched is a masterclass series on various aspects of theatre. It will feature personalities such as Samik Bandyopadhyay, Balan Nambiar, Chandrashekhara Kambara and Joy Michael," says Kendre.
The 18th Bharat Rang Mahotsav will be held at NSD, along with LTG Auditorium, Kamani Auditorium and Shri Ram Centre in New Delhi, between February 1 and 21
