Performances to savour
DEVINA DUTT
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This year's Prithvi festival gave viewers some of the better plays from diverse groups operating in different languages.
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Eclectic festival: A scene from the magical "Pebet".
EACH year in November, as the annual Prithvi Theatre Festival unfolds, 82-year-old veteran playwright, director and founder of the Naya Theatre, Habib Tanvir, casts himself in a different role. Apart from staging his own productions and meeting theatre enthusiasts at one-on-one sessions, Tanvir makes it a point to catch as many plays as he can at the bustling Prithvi Theatre in Juhu and its other festival venues in Mumbai. Joining him in this frenzied race are scores of other theatre lovers.
Spontaneous discussions
The recently concluded festival, which ran from November 3 to November 19, offered 28 plays, 16 platform performances and several `Meet the Playwright' sessions. Informal gatherings and discussions evolved spontaneously as viewers, students, actors and fans came together in between shows at the Prithvi café, confirming its status as one of the most popular, and eclectic theatre festivals in the country.
Thus there are veterans like Tanvir with a fresh interpretation of Rabindranath Tagore's play "Visarjan" and novel Rajarshi in a new production titled "RajRakt" and the more elusive H. Kanailal with Kalakshetra Manipur's superb and magical "Pebet", originally performed in 1975, its power and lyricism intact. Notable among the new was Abhinaya Theatre Research Centre's "Bhagavadajjukam" performed in English, Malayalam and Hindi; the Young Professionals of the Kattaikuttu Gurukalam's "Parkadal" (Milky Ocean) in Tamil and the Ahmedabad-based Fade in Theatre with "Anthama Taranu Aakash" (The Sky of the Eighth Star) in Gujarati.
Centenary celebrations
This year marked the centenary celebrations of Prithviraj Kapoor, in whose memory his actor son Shashi Kapoor and daughter-in-law Jennifer Kapoor set up the Prithvi theatre in 1978. In the first flush of the post-independence era, the senior Kapoor set up a repertory theatre company and performed over two thousand shows across the country in a 16-year period. Remarkably this was done without any form of government support. An exhibition on Prithviraj and his Prithvi Theatres marked the beginning of this festival.
Prithviraj's phrase, Kala Desh Ki Seva Mein (Art in Service of the Nation), coined as it was in another era, articulated an uncomplicated notion of social responsibility on the part of artists. However, the use of the same phrase as the festival theme was not without its problems. For one, the sense of unselfconscious idealism has run into murkier waters in the present age.
Thus several plays in the festival, included due to an apparent link to the theme, were uninspiring and banal in their depiction of contemporary issues. Yet, one got to see several classics. Marathi plays in this genre included Satish Alekar's "Mahanirvaan" with some superb acting and singing from veteran Chandrakant Kale, and Nilu Phule's robust tamasha production titled "Kunacha Kunala Mel Nahi". Two one-woman shows based on the lives and experiences of Laxmibai Tilak and Savitribai Phule with senior Marathi actresses Suhas Joshi in "Smruti Chittre" and Sushama Deshpande in "Vhai Mee Savitribai" were well appreciated. Shafaat Khan's fine black comedy on the erosion of values in present day India, "Shobhayatra" (Hindi) was revived after a long interval and ran to full houses.
Soumya Joshi and his group Fade In Theatres have established thmselves in Ahmedabad and succeeded in writing and producing original plays of some sensitivity. The fact that the group has done so by circumventing the usual loud comedies the Gujarati stage is known for is no mean achievement. In their first performance at Prithvi, Joshi's troupe of actors, comprising mainly college students, proved to be energetic and sincere. "Anthama Taranu Aakash" is an intriguing invocation of the ultra romantic strain in the lives of those who are so desperately poor and vulnerable they may only survive by tweaking reality. But is it possible for any of these characters to stay within the safe limits of the imagination and fantasy?
Clearly, this is what the writer and director attempt to ask in the course of the play. Some scenes appear maudlin but it is difficult to discount a certain sincerity of expression. In part, the play seemed naïve, even endearing for its unabashed emotional appeal and just as annoying, the very next moment, for its excesses. Hopefully Sowmya Joshi and his young troupe will retain their strengths and imbibe wider influences and more sinewy elements into their work
This year Prithvi Theatre also partnered with Happenings, a cultural group from Kolkata that had earlier initiated a rediscovery of Rabindranath Tagore the playwright, by inviting four diverse directors to interpret his works. The four plays and their directors turned out to be as eclectic as anyone could have hoped for and were well received at the festival. Habib Tanvir with "Raj Rakt", Suman Mukhopadhyay with Tagore's dark and chilling play "Rakta Karabi", H. Kanhailal with "Dakghar" and K.N. Panicker with "Raja" completed the package.
Visual feast
Kanhailal's "Dakghar" combined six languages and dialects with music and mime in this classic text about a young man's quest for freedom with the renowned actress H. Sabitri putting in a sublime performance as the young Amal. K.N. Panicker's "Raja" was assured and elaborate — a visual feast and a performance to savour. Tanvir's "Raj Rakt" was a skilful adaptation of a difficult text. Ironically, the sole Kolkata-based director in the package struck the only truly disappointing note. Suman Mukhopadhyay's "Rakta Karabi" scored the lowest emotional impact. An overwrought sense of sets and scale and an over reliance on this single element as a substitute for everything else one looks for in a moving play, made this production a less than satisfactory experience.
On the last day of the festival, with 16 days of intensive theatre viewing behind them, audiences in the city have reason to believe that the festival next year will generate as much interest and discussion as this one.
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