The city’s sleepy theatre scene has been jolted awake with the Delhi Theatre Festival. A two-day festival with some of the biggest names in theatre, including Naseeruddin Shah, Rajit Kapur, Deepti Naval and Saurabh Shukla, will act up their talent. Additionally, you’ll also see a number of discussions, theatre workshops and activities.
A Walk in the Woods, Barff and Ek Mulaqaat are the three plays being staged. The first one is about two diplomats trying to achieve a breakthrough in the muddled negotiations between their two countries. Will their attempt succeed where official channels have failed? You’ll have to
find out.
Barff is a thriller which spans over one night. Desperate parents of an ailing child and an unsuspecting doctor are the three lives caught in the whirlwind of conflicting questions of truth, reality and belief. “Barff raises many questions. Is truth what we all experience together or we all have our own different truths? Does truth lead to belief or it’s the belief which constructs the truth? Does truth actually exist or it’s just a manifestation of one’s own belief?,” enquires Manish Porwal, the Managing Director
of Alchemist, the company that’s presenting the festival.
Ek Mulaqaat is about poets Sahir Ludhianvi and Amrita Pritam. It is a play about unfulfilled love, poetry and music. The woman is happy to meet the man and as they proceed in their conversation, unanswered questions are answered. The man has come with a specific purpose. But what could it be? “All three raise questions that we all will ask ourselves at one point or the other. It’s poignancy lies in the very same fact,” he says.
In organising this festival, there was just one thing Porwal had in mind—that Delhi can do better in terms of offering live entertainment just like Mumbai and Bengaluru,” he says. Delhi Theatre Festival is the actualisation of the same idea.
April 29-30, Siri Fort Auditorium, Asian Games Village Complex. Tickets can be booked on bookmyshow.com.