BANGALORE: The latest edition of Jagriti’s annual theatre festival will be held in the city starting September 19 and will go on till November. This year’s festival highlights the diversity and vibrancy of the cultural scene in India and brings together plays by theatre groups from across the country spanning different genres and theatre styles.
The schedule
Play: The Open Couple by Dario Fo
Date: September 19 - 28
Director: Faraz Khan
Synopsis: Originally written by Dario Fo, an Italian playwright known for his witty, satirical plays, The Open Couple probes a whirlwind of a marriage where the husband persuades his wife to have an ‘open relationship’. What follows is a hilarious escapade as the husband indulges in dalliances with younger women. Soon tables are turned and it is the wife who takes a lover and the husband is the one who is scandalised and even suicidal.
Play: Under the Mangosteen Tree, based on short stories by Vaikom Muhammad Basheer
Date: October 3 - 12
Director: Rajiv Krishnan
Synopsis: Director Rajiv Krishnan and theatre group Perch, in Under the Mangosteen Tree, aim to demonstrate the versatility of Vaikom Muhammad Basheer's writing by bringing together seven of his stories on the stage.
Play: The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol
Date: October 17 - 26
Director: Akarsh
Khurana
Synopsis: The theatre group Akvarious Productions takes Nikolai Gogol’s 1836 satire on greed and corruption and makes it relevant to the current day milieu. The play follows a group of money-grabbing officials learn that a government inspector will be visiting their town on an investigation. Terrified, they struggle to stifle public dissatisfaction while also apportioning blame for their myriad scrupulous acts onto each other. But what remains a mystery to them is the identity of the so-called government inspector.
Play: Stale News by Badal Sircar
Date: October 31 - November 9
Director: Ajith Hande
Synopsis: Badal Sircar, is a pioneering figure in the Indian theatre scene, known for his anti-establishment plays and also for taking theatre out of the proscenium to public spaces in the 1960s. One such play, Stale News, which was translated in the 80s, was originally written for the environmental theatre. In this play, Sircar plunges into the heart of a tribal revolt that takes place in the nineteenth century east India.
Play: Charandas Thief! by Habib Tanvir
Date: November 14 - 23
Director: Arundhati Raja
Synopsis: Charandas Thief (Charandas Chor), is one of the many breakthrough stories by Habib Tanvir who was an influential playwright. The play is the story of a thief who swears to always speak the truth. Before committing a theft, he tells his victims of his true motives. In the course of his life as a thief, he encounters different types of people each of whom ironically pale in comparison to Charandas’ honesty. Narrated with a Chaplinesque humour, it satirises society by pitting an honest thief against dishonest citizens.