Curtains fall on International Theatre Festival in Kolkata

The 7th edition of International Theatre Festival, a six day long theatre extravaganza which was organized by Kalindi Bratyajon in Kolkata wrapped up on June 3.

The closing day was made special with back to back four shows including Bratyajon's own production, 'Oh! Swapna…', directed by Prithwis Rana, which was not only the first show of the day but was staged for the first time. The stage performances were followed by second play, the original story, 'Shanibar', written by the well-known playwright, Badal Sircar, the father of 'Third theatre'. The drama encircled around an office employee who gets sucked by the pressure at his place of work and day-dreams his way into the world of utopia. The next show was a one act play from Tunisia. Experienced dramatist and film star, Ikram Azzouz played the role of a cleaner whose life took a turn when a time bomb was found in his trolley. The author of the play is Ahmed Ameur and is directed by Taherissa Ben Larbi.

'Bisorjoner Por' was the third production of the day by playmakers. The play is written by Bratya Basu which revolves around the widower Mohitosh and his hallucination of meeting his wife regularly even after her death. Kaustav Duttagupta directed the play and it was the debut show.

The festival formally came to an end with a vote of thanks from the convener of the festival, Bratya Basu. This was followed by a political satire, 'Akdin Aladin', also penned by Basu. It was a directional debut on stage for actor Kanchan Mallick who also played the lead role of Madhab Marik.

His energetic performance in role of an aspiring politician ended the festival in a high spirit. Kolkatans will definitely cherish the memory of four foreign dramas and seven local plays for a long time. We also saw felicitation of three talented theatre artistes Joydip Bhowmick, Sourav Gupta and Bhumisuta Das during the day as a sign of recognition for contribution towards theatre by Bratyajon.