With the influx of finance into theatre by the corporates, things are looking up for stage practitioners and performing artistes. After Vodafone instituted Odeon Theatre Festival, it’s Airtel’s turn to help raise the curtain.
“Lifestage: Kolkata Theatre Festival”, which kickstarted from November 1 and will continue till November 9, is a colourful dramafest that unveils a bunch of contemporary young groups who have stormed onto the stage with a tapestry of new-age plays, funky presentations, offbeat scripts woven around unique themes.
Theatre connoisseurs are flocking to Kalamandir or G.D. Birla Sabhaghar auditoriums to catch a couple of productions from their favourite troupe’s repertoire. The format is innovative in the sense that it combines a melange of freshly culled, pacy, vibrant plays from other metros with local talents aboard. “We offer a delightful ensemble for the culturally conscious and the discerning audience of Kolkata. We intend to make such a long overdue festival an annual event,” says Arindam Ghosh, COO, WBO, Mobile Services, Bharti Airtel.
Patronising this initiative, filmmaker Anjan Dutt responds: “From the niche cauldron of classic English theatre of yesterday, a more Indianised and cosmopolitan dramatic adaptation has surfaced on stage today. There has been a visible paradigm shift here. Plays have now become more mainstream in context and content to suit the palate of the upwardly mobile audiences. Characters are Indian, stories are interestingly indigenous, situations are correlatable, and all other essential ingredients are practically home-spun and flavoured with domestic craftsmanship. So Indo-English theatre practitioners and playwrights are more keen to take a leaf out of their own treasure-trove or create something contemporary, eccentric, wacky or new-age to hold their own.”
“Widely read and referred to literary texts are everlasting in their appeal. But Indian English stage is now hell-bent on pushing the boundaries further with relevant issues cropping up by the day, burning socio-political upheavals, insurrectionary movements, changes in the social psyche and developmental breakthroughs that shake the collective consciousness,” he says.
Springing much surprise on stage with its opening play, Five Point Someone, based on Chetan Bhagat’s eponymous novel. The festival will witness the maiden stage rendition of the same by Chennai-based Evam theatre troupe at Kalamandir.
Directed by Sunil Vishnu K., the play deals with the halcyon years of college, spading out friendship, love and hostel-life. A thoroughly entertaining play, presented by Evam’s actors, the script encases a very genuine story, swarmed with identifiable characters.
“Lifestage” will unfurl an eight-day extravaganza. Two Mumbai entrants will be enthralling theatre aficionados. The participatory groups are Q Theatre Productions and AKvarious Production. The former troupe will present a performance called Project S.T.R.I.P, while the latter will present All About Women. Besides, Gentlemen by Goblin Production from Bangalore, The Leela Tapes by Actor Factor from Delhi and home-grown plays by city-bred directors Kanak Gupta and Arindam Mukherjee will be featured in the fest.
Twin plays from Kolkata’s kitty will get to premiere at this year’s issue of “Lifestage”. Written and directed by Arindam Mukherjee, 221B Baker Street is an overture that portrays characters, who are mostly accomplished professionals. They are given to their fancies, successes, failings and their personal cravings (or disdains) for fictionalised crimes. The globally popular address which suggests the play’s title, significantly establishes a bond with the place where the world’s most renowned and inspiring sleuth — Sherlock Holmes — resided. Celebrated crime fiction writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s immortal detective character has been time and again filmed, recreated and modelled upon in countless whodunits and spine-chilling thrillers on silver-screen till date. A Story Teller troupe’s production, 221B Baker Street will be performed at G.D. Birla Sabhaghar on November 7.
Also in the lineup will be Woody Allen’s God helmed by Kanak Gupta. An esoteric, multi-dimensional play, each layer teases the spectators with questions of what is reality and what’s fiction. The presentation from the Theatrecian will engross the viewers at Kalamandir on November 9.
If sponsorship creates a desirable space in the market, then can the takers in the industry be far behind? “It’s like hitting two birds with a single stone. The money pooled into modern English plays can even benefit the conventional Bengali group theatre. You can’t confine theatre primarily to an elitists’ exercise of pleasure and pastime, can you? Theatrical funds are usually pumped in from either government coffers, personal individual pockets or some political party treasury. Therefore, corporate sponsorship is a vital decisive clincher here. In fact, my film Bong Connection, though made in English language, was not only watched by well-read, smart, affluent students of leading English medium schools, but also by youngsters from small-town, district levels for that matter. Chetan Bhagat, Amit Chaudhuri or Amitav Ghosh’s books are a simple case in point. They are being thoroughly read by all and sundry, including the modest, meek lower-middle classes as well as the street-smart, ubercool dudes,” says Dutt, who feels that Indian English theatre has reached an exciting position to command its own autonomy. Besides proscenium and site-specific or open-air plays, theatre has over the years evolved into other types of genres as well.
Keeping the basic entertainment value intact, this unique, vibrant, youth-centric theatre festival puts its key focus on bolstering local as well as other provincial talents.
“Traditional accomplished troupes are already under a spotlight. But now we need to shed the same over the upcoming amateur groups who are inherently skilled but always search for a perfect platform to showcase their latent talents. Hence, this is the ideal space for promising kids,” says Ghosh.