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The play is the thing

The curtain goes up on the third annual Ranga Shankara festival tomorrow. Arundhati Nag, the dynamic force behind the movement, tells RAKESH MEHAR there is a lot to look forward to at the theatre festival

PHOTO: MURALI KUMAR K.

MORE THE MERRIERArundhati Nag: `The city needs four Ranga Shankaras. But for that you need four idiots like me'

Bangalore shutting down for a full day with less than a week to go for the third annual Ranga Shankara festival threw quite a spanner into the works, admits Arundhati Nag, the driving force behind the theatre. Indeed, a much-reduced seven-day festival does seem to fall short of past glories such as the month-long festival that inaugurated the space two years ago.

But Arundhati is eager to dispel the myth that bigger is better. "Just because it's a smaller festival, it doesn't mean that we have compromised in any way. The festival is being opened by the world premiere of Girish Karnad's latest play Flowers, directed by Roysten Abel and it is being closed by a Hindi adaptation of an Italian play starring Ila Arun. And between these big names are a bunch of plays that everybody should see."

More festivals

Besides, she adds, a lot of festivals have now cropped up in the city, each bringing its own mix of good theatre from around Karnataka and the rest of the country. "That's wonderful because it reduces the load on us, and we can concentrate on festivals in the future where Ranga Shankara produces all of its own plays." Of course, all fervent dreams do come with the attached reality bite. "Theatre festivals are quite expensive to put up," she adds. In this respect, however, Ranga Shankara has had a lot of help from Hutch. "In the olden days, kings used to sponsor theatre, but now we have a good partner in Hutch," asserts Arundhati. While she is glad for the support she receives from the cellular operator, it saddens her that more corporate organisations aren't willing to step forward and provide meaningful support to theatre.

"There are hardly any corporates sponsoring theatre in India, and when they do, you can't see the name of the play, only the name of the company." She takes issue to this what's-in-it-for-me mentality. "Theatre is one of the few beautiful arts that is truly secular, and doesn't have its origins in religious tradition. It is something that needs to be kept alive."

In line with that effort of keeping a thing of beauty alive, lively and viable for coming generations is the Young Director Fest. This unique initiative has a group of young directors, each choosing a particular play and presenting two alternative interpretations — one featuring a cast of students and another featuring a cast of young corporate employees. "That's where the audience is. In college they are young and have the time and energy for theatre; and after college when they're in the market, this helps them with team building and so on. And in the bargain, they get to watch some good plays."

The idea behind such a focus, she explains is to push for greater inclusion. What's more, these platform performances also offer a group of young directors who haven't yet acquired the standing to take centre stage at a festival the chance to still display their skills at this one. "These are people whose work we've been watching and know that they're going to `be someone' in theatre in future."

Collaboration

Another exciting feature is Ranga Shankara's collaboration with Roysten Abel and Rajit Kapur. This, says Arundhati seems the right way to go for their resident production team, offering a chance to both bring good theatre to Bangalore and to take Ranga Shankara to the international stage.

"Otherwise Rajit and Roysten would only perform two or maybe three shows in Bangalore every year. With this production, we are planning at least 20 shows here and another 20 in Mumbai." This collaboration is just one in a series of steps aimed at establishing Ranga Shankara as not only a theatre space, but also a dynamic production company.

Thus, for its next project, Ranga Shankara is working on a children's production in December andwill give the theatre a chance to link up with schools and children. "When we staged two German plays, we managed to get 4,000 children over six shows. That made us realise that we were sitting on a goldmine of children who need exposure to theatre."

Better theatre

Looking to the future, Arundhati promises that Ranga Shankara's focus will be on better, higher quality theatre. "The city needs four Ranga Shankaras. But for that you need four idiots like me." In that sense, she says, she is glad of projects like the Artist's Repertory Theatre's Jagriti, the new space being created in Whitefield. "They could have sold the property and got a nice penthouse worth crores. Instead they chose to put it into theatre. I see them as company, not competition, and hope that we can work out ways in which we supplement each other."

For Ranga Shankara, she says, the primary aim will be to give birth to a whole new generation of theatre practitioners and audiences, and to give Bangalore a helping hand in creating productions that merit the national and international stage.

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