Back Up Good Intentions With Action
Mumbai Theatre Guide
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Wednesday, 31 Jan 2024
Dear Reader,
Back Up Good Intentions With ActionThe National School of Drama's Bharat Rang Mahotsav comes to Mumbai again this year-- and other cities too-- because it is the 25th edition of Bharangam and theatre has to be taken to the people, according to NSD's director Chittaranjan Tripathy. ( Detailed report on the site.)
The selection of plays for Mumbai is not too exciting, and before the Festival could even be inaugurated in the city, the opening play HUMARE RAM was pulled out for undisclosed reasons, and replaced with TAJMAHAL KA TENDER.
Pankaj Trupathi has been sportingly accompanying the NSD team to various press conferences as the brand ambassador, or Rang Doot, when he has not appeared on stage in recent memory. At least the Chairman, Paresh Rawal, who is not an NSD alumnus, continues to do theatre.
There is talk of a Rang Haat, like the Film Bazaar at IFFI in Goa, where theatre aspirants can pitch their proposals, but the idea, noble as it is, seems hastily put together and not given adequate thought. Pitch to whom? And for what? The 'pitchers' don't even have enough time to put together proposals.
Till there are more affordable venues made available for theatre, all the talk of setting up more training centres all over the country hardly makes sense. The groups who sincerely do theatre and travel to other centres, where, more often than not, infrastructure is lacking, do so on their own, with no support from the government. They are building audiences for theatre in far-flung places, the kind who buy tickets, not surface just when free entry is available.
Which is not to undermine the value of an institution like the NSD, but when there are so many entertainment options available to audiences, harking back to Bharat Muni and the ancient glory of Indian theatre does not help the cause of contemporary theatre.
"Theatre exists only because it is overwhelming, because its acting is astonishing. Where a theatre and its acting are merely 'good,' merely 'correct,' merely 'in the proper style,' theatre dies a slow death."
- Robert Cohen
HUM DONO
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