No child’s play this
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Prithvi brought some cheer to kids during the children’s festival earlier this month. Janhavi Acharekar
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Vibrant and interactive: Irrespective of language, most performances maintained a strong local flavour.
THE usually restrained audience at Mumbai’s most intimate theatre space — the Prithvi Theatre — bursts into squeals and shouts, loud claps and laughter, mid-performance. Surprisingly, the actors smile benignly, often veering from ca
refully rehearsed dialogues towards spontaneous repartee when a member of the audience interrupts them with a loud whisper. But then, this is no ordinary audience. Nor is it any ordinary performance. It’s summertime at Prithvi — a season of plays performed especially for children.
Treat for children
It would be impossible to talk about all the events at the children’s festival in one breath. With 28 workshops and 75 shows of 18 productions held over two months at two different venues, the Prithvi Theatre and Horniman Circle Garden, the festival gets bigger every year. This summer saw some commendable performances and other not-so-remarkable ones. However, all in all, it has been a treat for children who were seen queuing up with parents well before the gates opened.
Most performances have been vibrant and interactive, and irrespective of language — English or Hindi — have maintained a strong, local flavour. Productions included Akvarious’s adaptation of stories by Ruskin Bond, “A Special Bond”; IPTA Balmanch’s “Agar Aur Magar”; Ramu Ramanathan’s “Medha And Zoombish II” and 3rd Bell Productions’ dramatisation of N.D. Thamnakar’s Marathi novel “Gotya”, among others. “Time To Tell A Tale”, directed by Digvijay Savant, enacted stories from the Yuva Katha series set in small town India. These translations from the original Bengali, Urdu, Konkani and Hindi, ranging from cricket matches in rural Bengal to fake antique dealers in Delhi, bring alive the essence and plurality of their setting. The enjoyable stories and performances have been energised by regional accents and the story “Jalebis”, in particular, displays remarkable direction and performances.
Working Title’s “Once Upon A Tiger” aims at creating environmental consciousness. An excellent idea and good intentions are unfortunately paired with disappointing performances and dialogues, in their attempt to be both colloquial and informative.
However, set amid an interesting backdrop (jute branches suspended from a banyan tree around which much of the action takes place) the play educates children about the threat of extinction faced by the big cat and the dangers posed to the earth’s resources by ‘burpy cola’ factories, delighting the audience with an alternate end.
“Agar Aur Magar”, directed by Salim Arif, is an adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s “He Who Says Yes and He Who Says No”. Written in folk tradition and verse by Gulzar, this beautiful musical exhorting children to question tradition and accepted norms, was brought to life with superlative singing by its little cast.
“A Special Bond”, in contrast, had adults playing the parts of children, with excellent results and great comic timing. This highly entertaining piece about the adventures of a city boy in Ruskin Bond country captures beautifully, the fine nuances of life in a North Indian hill station. A brilliant production with outstanding lighting (particularly during a train sequence) and innovative use of music, it has proved to be immensely popular.
Among the highlights of the festival was “King’s Journey”, shadow puppet theatre by German troupe Theatre Handgemge, brought by the Goethe Institute.
The story of the adventures of a king and his housekeeper to the other end of the earth and back, were illustrated with a spectacular play of light and shadow, of music and humour.
Commendable success
With love-struck ghosts and mischievous monkeys, dying tigers and puppet kings, cricket matches and jalebis, Prithvi has made children laugh and cry, clap and cheer this exceptionally hot summer.
In a city with few outdoor activities for children, it has provided an indoor space that takes them to different worlds with theatre as a medium.
The success of the festival, year after year, is commendable because to produce theatre that appeals to children is no child’s play.
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