The puppets of genesis
16 Jan 2014 11:28 PM GMT
The plays staged during the Bharat Rang Mahotsav has touched many issues from woman safety to the hygiene of the city but that’s not it, during the final days plays have more metaphysical themes and audience learnt much about human behaviour by watching these plays.
Hey Manush was an urgent wake-up call for human beings to take notice of the destruction and chaos that surround our world now. The play opens to a universe before creation, and then leads us to the evolution of life. It talks about the constant struggles of human against nature for existence. The humans discover fire and invent various tools and techniques to fortify their position.
With time they use their creativity and talents to create good lives for themselves and others, but greed, lust, anger, pride, and jealousy transform them into cruel beings driven by the desire to control. The play mentions the Kurukshetra War and World War II, both of which result in mass destruction and death. We are in the twenty-first century - a world of weapons, nuclear power, but still a world that is dangerous and carries the potential of large scale destruction. After discovering so many things, it is time, Hey Manush asks, for man to discover themselves. The play Night’s End was story of Krishnan whose born into a family of Kathakali artistes and trained in the form since childhood.
Krishnan runs away from his native village in Kerala and becomes a forest guard in a tiger sanctuary. In moments of emotional intensity the Kathakali artiste in him finds solace in dancing. The play traces Krishnan’s attempts to enlist the help of the tiger-hunting Mogiya tribals to save the tiger, his friendship with Billu Mogiya, the drummer, his romance with Chandni Mogiya and his encounters with the poaching mafia. The play explores the themes of abandonment and individual responsibility; the loneliness, loss and love experienced by individuals caught in complex socio-political webs as they struggle to survive.
Play Penalty Kick was inspired by a Malayalam short story Higuita by NS Madhavan. Higuita is a Columbian football player renowned for his fabulous, canny scorpion kick and in the story he is the measured metaphor for Father Gee Varghese, a priest in Delhi, who in order to save a poor tribal girl, Lucy Marandy, from Bihar, faces the pimp Jabbar. Higuita creates its own syntax with its subtle connections of crisscrossing dialogues and images that reflect the sensibility of change.
Uney Purey Shahar Ek is translation of Girish Karnad’s Kannada play Benda Kaalu on Toast. Story of a city which used to be something else and that something else is history now. The history of this city is the chain of events, ambitions, aspirations, frustrations and efforts of the people who loved it even when it was a mere piece of land. Over it they built a town that later ruled the country.
People’s dreams made it grow bigger. However, the dreams of people on this piece of land no longer form a part of the city’s future, it now thrives on the dreaming people themselves and not on their dreams. It is a complete city full of incomplete people. Yet, even if one piece of this jigsaw is lost, the picture will still be complete.
Dolls theatre from Kolkata, performed an hour long non-verbal play titled Taming of the Wild. This performance in modern puppetry comprises of four episodes which explored themes like The World Within, Floral Tribute, Movements in Wilderness and Call of the Wild.
Hey Manush was an urgent wake-up call for human beings to take notice of the destruction and chaos that surround our world now. The play opens to a universe before creation, and then leads us to the evolution of life. It talks about the constant struggles of human against nature for existence. The humans discover fire and invent various tools and techniques to fortify their position.
With time they use their creativity and talents to create good lives for themselves and others, but greed, lust, anger, pride, and jealousy transform them into cruel beings driven by the desire to control. The play mentions the Kurukshetra War and World War II, both of which result in mass destruction and death. We are in the twenty-first century - a world of weapons, nuclear power, but still a world that is dangerous and carries the potential of large scale destruction. After discovering so many things, it is time, Hey Manush asks, for man to discover themselves. The play Night’s End was story of Krishnan whose born into a family of Kathakali artistes and trained in the form since childhood.
Krishnan runs away from his native village in Kerala and becomes a forest guard in a tiger sanctuary. In moments of emotional intensity the Kathakali artiste in him finds solace in dancing. The play traces Krishnan’s attempts to enlist the help of the tiger-hunting Mogiya tribals to save the tiger, his friendship with Billu Mogiya, the drummer, his romance with Chandni Mogiya and his encounters with the poaching mafia. The play explores the themes of abandonment and individual responsibility; the loneliness, loss and love experienced by individuals caught in complex socio-political webs as they struggle to survive.
Play Penalty Kick was inspired by a Malayalam short story Higuita by NS Madhavan. Higuita is a Columbian football player renowned for his fabulous, canny scorpion kick and in the story he is the measured metaphor for Father Gee Varghese, a priest in Delhi, who in order to save a poor tribal girl, Lucy Marandy, from Bihar, faces the pimp Jabbar. Higuita creates its own syntax with its subtle connections of crisscrossing dialogues and images that reflect the sensibility of change.
Uney Purey Shahar Ek is translation of Girish Karnad’s Kannada play Benda Kaalu on Toast. Story of a city which used to be something else and that something else is history now. The history of this city is the chain of events, ambitions, aspirations, frustrations and efforts of the people who loved it even when it was a mere piece of land. Over it they built a town that later ruled the country.
People’s dreams made it grow bigger. However, the dreams of people on this piece of land no longer form a part of the city’s future, it now thrives on the dreaming people themselves and not on their dreams. It is a complete city full of incomplete people. Yet, even if one piece of this jigsaw is lost, the picture will still be complete.
Dolls theatre from Kolkata, performed an hour long non-verbal play titled Taming of the Wild. This performance in modern puppetry comprises of four episodes which explored themes like The World Within, Floral Tribute, Movements in Wilderness and Call of the Wild.
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