The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Calling the youth to the Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival 2007

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Oct 12, 2007
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Karnataka - Bangalore

Calling the youth to the Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival 2007

Staff Reporter

— Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.

Energy and sensuality: A scene from a play to be staged at the Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival 2007.

Bangalore: “There is a bit of drama in all of us”, says the catchline of the fourth Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival 2007.

There was drama, sound and film interwoven in an attempt to catch the mood and theme of this year’s festival with some of the actors themselves.

Directed and put together by Claire Denienl, the performance and video saw a flurry of images, moods and thoughts at the announcement.

At the press conference on Thursday, theatre personalities and the people behind the festival, Ranga Shankara’s creative director Arundhati Nag, director Nagabharana, playwright Girish Karnad and Vodafone Essar South’s operations director Samuel Selvakumar spoke about the themes and highlights of the fest.

Ms. Nag said that the plays will focus on energy and sensuality, issues that people between the age-group of 16 to 30 might have been faced with. The festival is on from October 20 to 28 and will feature nine plays in five languages from all over India.

The first and last days of the fest are “day-long carnivals” which will see short performances and poetry readings in both Kannada and English. This year’s plays fall into the categories of veteran, generation now and new productions in Kannada.

Manipur’s Chorus Repertory Theatre will perform Dharamvir Bharati’s “Andha Yug”, Naseeruddin Shah’s Motley will perform Jean Anouilh’s “Antigone” and Neelam Mansingh’s new play “The Suit” will be staged.

The festival will also see three “promising youngsters”, Jaimini Pathak, Ramu Ramanathan and Arghya Lahiri, with “refreshingly different themes and treatments”.

Kannada enthusiasts will see Ranga Shankara’s co-productions in Mahesh Elkunchwar’s “Holi” and Vivek Shanbhag’s “Bahumukhi”.

“Romeo and Juliet” will see two directors, Vikram Kapadia and Chetan Datar, along with home-grown S. Surendranath.

The plays will have two shows every day, with the one at 3.30 p.m. targeting college-goers at Rs. 70. The other play at 7.30 p.m. is priced at Rs. 150.

Tickets are available from October 14 at Ranga Shankara (26493982), Sankars-The Book People on Old Madras Bank Road (25586867), and Vodafone stores in Sheshadripuram (41242122), Koramangala (41104164) and Indiranagar (41159477).

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