Jugal Koul
On World Theatre Day each year, numerous performing spaces become abuzz in commemoration, sprawling across the remotest contours of the planet in varied shades, languages and cultures ,all evolving in to a single resolute expression of collective joy and the integration of human spirit. This year coincidently the Sacred festival of colours, ‘Holi’ is commencing on the succeeding day , adding further on to its native charm .Colour has always been synonymous with the spirit of theatre in the orient.In India Theatre is known as Rangmanch which metaphorically means the stage of colours.
59th World Theatre Day
It has become quite ceremonious since last few years to witness the annual theatre festival now named as ,’Festival of plays’ organized by JKAACL, crisscrossing the world theatre day celebrations especially in the historic city of temples.
JK Academy since its inception in 1960 has remained the prime initiating and sustaining source for the amateur theatre enthusiasts and groups in the districts and two capital cities of the region, through the annual drama festivals and few jointly organized collaborative events with the premiere institutions like National School Of Drama,NZCC,SNA ,ICCR and host of other organizations.
These drama festivals since 1960s decade onwards inspired a sequence of competitions amongst the theatre groups. It eventually created a battery of self taught, creative ,keen & distinguished performers, directors & playwrights. Indeed main cities & towns were abounded by a vibrant theatre movement adorned with research& development of, craft, acting, form and contents amazingly in absence of any premiere training institution. Wide range of prevalent theatrical styles like Staislavsky’s realism, Parsi melodrama, Brechtian alienation, Grotowskian suggestive body theatre or traditional folk theatre, contented with legends, Myths, Rasa theory, socio political turbulences, Psychological thrills and resounding folk tales has shaped the armature of the indigenous theatre of the region.
On 27th March 1962 at the opening of ‘Theatre of Nations’ season in Paris, remarkable tradition of celebrating World Theatre Day across the globe had formally begun. However need for this commemoration had been actually felt and announced by President Arvi Kivimaa in the 9th world congress of International Theatre Institute held at Vienna in the year 1961. Every year,since then, World Theatre Day is celebrated together by the international theatre community to promote mutual harmony between peoples and share their vision of theatre globally through creativity and peace. The day has been marked traditionally by circulation of international message authored by a theatre personality of world stature. Eminent, British stage screen and television actress Helen Mirren is the author of International Theatre Message,this year.
As per world’s oldest dramaturgy Bharat Muni’s Natya Shastra, Brahma created theatre as fifth Veda to communicate the highly philosophical and intricate Sanskrit connotations of four Vedas to common man.He visioned it to Bharata Muni who as per the given command presented the first ever theatre performance before the hundred sons of Brahma. Concept of modern day proscenium ,theatre of alienation and intimate theatre probably can traverse its roots to the Indian classical age.
Current festival has some profound quality plays to witness especially in the theatre craft,light design ,actor’s performances and direction. Rabindranath Tagore’s famous heartfelt emotional short story Kabuliwallah is a household name in India.Its wonderful adaptation and stage direction by Rajneesh Gupta was a memorable play of the festival .Design and direction , usage of light and space, well worked out movements and acting, owing to its subtle ,sensitive and touching storyline , had skillfully transformed the story in to an evocative presentation.
J N Koushal’s excellent adaptation of two and a half millennia old famous Greek tragedy ‘Trojan Women’ by the great ancient playwright Euripides directed by Ravinder Raina was amid the top highlights of the festival. The ancient dark tragedy has not lost it relevance as the continual cruel bestial aspect of human existence seems far from extinguishment , even in present civilized world. Ravinder’s passion and self-belief in venturing such challenging masterpieces owing to his courage , conviction and command on the theatre-craft,is commendable. One could vividly witness the effective engagement of space and movements ,design and entire interwoven structure of the play unfolding the dark shades of befallen prehistoric tragedy. Training the amateur actors for playing the seasoned characters, must have been a challenging task for its director..Play is mounted on an excellent multi stream usage of light.Era costumes,properties and makeup appeared well researched and worked upon. Invisible changeovers, Stylistic interjections, appealing intonations, expressions and movements, scaffolds in to an interesting buoyancy in engaging the spectators.
Well composed ,quality performance of Vijay Tendulkar’s ‘Panchi Aise Aate Hain’ a 1971, realistic humour play, adapted in Hindi from the original Marathi ,directed by Vijay Goswami appeared to be yet another endearing play from the festival ,especially for its amazing creative endeavour by the actors.Its director Vijay Goswami owes a great applaud for the sharp sketchy movements, utilization of space, stagecraft and actors. ‘Patjhad’ directed by Gurmeet Jamwal is the Indian adaptation of ‘The Glass Menagerie’ a celebrated memory based play by Tennessee Williams.Adopted by well known director ,actor and playwright ,Azhar Alam the play is certainly going to throw a pleasant surprise in the ongoing festival, knowing the exceptional talents of Gurmeet Jamwal especially as a legendry versatile actress of Jammu stage.
A delligent work seems to have been employed by all the amateur theatre groups of Jammu, in attempting celebrated plays like Balwant Gargi’s’ Lohakut’ in Punjabi,Vijay Tendulkar’s ‘Sakha Ram Binder’ adopted in Dogri by Shiv Mehta ,Meera Kant’s ‘Ant Hazir Ho’ in Hindi along with the host of other play scripts in Dogri, hindi and Kashmiri languages by the Jammu based playwrights like Kumar A Bharti,Rajneesh Gupta,Vikram Sharma, Sashi Bushan,Rakesh Roshan Bhat, Maharaj Krishen Jotshi and Suresh Bhardwaj.
Yet the message seems loud and clear about the need for introspection ,so that the purpose of such important well invested festivals may not get undermined as a consequence of consistent void in acquisition of basic theatrical perception , understanding of difference between Television and the medium of theatre, keen sensibilities amid the amateur directors who fail to reflect even a scarce enthusiasm to educate, learn and improve from such successive collective theatre-interactive fests.
A marathon quarantine times had certainly missed the true flesh and blood, face to face, timeless enigmatic beat of theatre, although our social sites remained preoccupied with the interactions by cross-section of theatre fraternity. But theatre is natural and inseparable part of human life. The Oriental scriptures regard theatre as a divine disposition noble and sacred to the core.
With heavy heart we must pray for the precious lives lost to Corona Time Space.Heartfelt homage to the great son of the soil, widely acclaimed international theatre personality, the founder of Rang Vidushak, Bhopal,Padam Shri Bansi Kaul , whom unfortunately we have also lost to the history,this year.His contribution to the indigenous Hindi heartland theatre is immense and unparalleled.
Helen Mirren the author of International Theatre Message, sums up the dilemma of present Corona crisis with an inspiring thrust ,”human beings have told each other stories for as long as they have been on the planet. The beautiful culture of theatre will live for as long as we stay here. The creative urge of writers, designers, dancers, singers, actors, musicians, directors, will never be suffocated and in the very near future will flourish again with a new energy and a new understanding of the world we all share. I cant wait!!”
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