Nautanki Family Drama

[Tyler Bannowsky]

Ourfinal episode of Nautan-tea ended on a high note. We continued this online chat session during the great Sydney lockdown. Here is an excerpt from Australian-Afghani actor Ali Morad joining me for a chat.

Nautan-tea will be back soon, bringing you the best of Australian South Asian performing arts talent. Watch this space.

We have launched an initiative called the Sydney West Edge Theatre campaign, and are very pleased to introduce you to our inaugural work. Now that restrictions following COVID-19 are easing, we are looking at the relaxed side of the new normal. Check out the first of our three-skit campaign HERE to raise funds for Nautanki Theatre Company.

However, this taxpayer community has seen little or no investment in art that represents the culture and heritage of its diaspora. And we are working hard to convince decision makers at the highest level that South Asian stories need to be told to a wider audience and Art needs to be supported.

The community has been a constant and encouraging supporter of NTC, and we are very keen to see all of you back in auditoriums; your applause ringing through the aisles means a lot to us. And we want the wider community to know that the theatre scenario has changed for the better. It no longer belongs to a few privileged grant-funded organisations and its un-Australian narratives that gave theatre a bad name.

January in 2016 saw the entire production running around in a dying urge of creation. Actors busy doing their lines, creative team designing set, prop and lighting. Lenore Robertson calmly directing the entire ensemble which in later half of January presented 3 successful shows of The Last Dance at Dum Dum by Ayub Khan-Din at Lennox Theatre in Parramatta.

Nautanki company had two successful venture with School kids this year as well. A dance and mask making workshop in April and another workshop in June on Learning Theatre through Games was two great opportunities to work with children and young kids.

Napoleon: I was born in Bombay, in a catholic family. My father was a teacher in Marathi school. He always encouraged us to read books. Somehow I started reading books about dramas and plays. I found it very interesting. In my young age I started acting on stage. When I realised this field is not as easy as I thought, I decided to study more about acting and attended some workshops. I have also participated in one- act-play competitions and once won acting awards on state level. I have also written one- act- plays and won best playwright award.

I migrated to Australia in 1990. I never thought that I will get an opportunity to act and direct plays in Australia, but if you have a will then there is a way and your talent can be used anywhere in the world. I was very happy to hear about Sydney Marathi Association (MASI). They had been presenting a lot of cultural programs including Marathi plays. I joined MASI in 1992. Since then I have performed and directed many plays including some one acts.

Napoleon: We have 8 cast members in this one act Marathi play. Marathi people are from Maharashtra state of India and they are very proud of cultural plays. Marathi people took their dramatic art all around the world. Marathi plays are more popular in Maharashtra. Casts in this play are very talented and enthusiastic. They are ready to sacrifice anything they can for this art-form.

The form developed mostly in two UP towns, Hathras and Kanpur, each distinct in style. The Hathras format is more musical and slow-paced, while Kanpur has a more robustly dramatic, racy and dialogue-heavy style that borrowed heavily from Parsi theatre. Till the mid-1950s, as films like Teesri Kasam show, travelling nautankis had a fierce fan following.

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