HYDERABAD: Following an overwhelming response to their first edition of Xpression, a multilingual theatre festival held at Lamakaan, Shudrka theatre group is all set to make it bigger this time. This year, it is being organised in collaboration with the Telangana government’s Department of Language and Culture and will be held at Ravindra Bharathi.
Talking about what all encapsulates the exciting lineup for this year’s festival, Swapan Mondal, the founder of Shudrka said, “We have invited four groups from outside Telangana this year. Naihati Rangasena from West Bengal will be performing Sricharankamaleshu, a Bengali play based on a story by Tagore. Then we have a group from Calicut University Little Theatre, performing Saadat Hasan Manto’s Tamasha in Malayali. Rang Mastaaney from Jaipur will be staging Maharathi in Rajasthani. Dr Velu Saravanan will be performing Kadal Bootham in Tamil, a show that he has performed about 1,000 times across the world.”
On the first day, following the inaugural lecture by cinema and theatre critic Samik Bandyopadhyay, Shudrka will be presenting its play titled ‘Oka Anokha Roopkatha Chalk Circle’. This performance is an adaptation of Brecht’s renowned play, ‘Caucasian Chalk Circle’.
“True to its name, the play will be delivered in four languages. Oka is Telugu, Anokha is Hindi, Roopkatha is Bengali, and Chalk Circle is English. We are trying to give a new dimension to this play,” said Mondal.
Besides theatre performances, other exciting events include a workshop conducted by Dr Velu Saravanan for orphan children, followed by their performance. Another unique thing about this festival is a makeup workshop, open to all, with a master makeup artist from Kolkata—Debasish Chatterjee.
Talking about the significance of a multilingual theatre festival, Mondal said, “Theatre has no bar of language. Theatre has its distinct language. Shudrka has always been doing plays in Hindi, Bengali and Telugu. We took some of our Telugu plays to West Bengal’s remote areas, where even children accepted them. We have already experimented and cut that barrier. In this festival, we have two great writers, Rabindranath Tagore and Saadat Hasan Manto, reflecting on India in different periods. Both portray the women of our society through their strong women-centric stories. How people receive these stories in our present times, would be interesting to see. Hence, the barrier of language is not there for us any more.”
Another session to look forward to at the festival is an open conversation with Samik Bandyopadhyay, who, Mondal says, is an ocean of knowledge. “The idea is to take questions from the audience and he would respond to them. The session will be moderated by Aparna Langewar Bose, a professor at EFLU,” he said.
When asked how a makeup workshop entered the schedule of a theatre festival, Mondal replied, “Out of many elements of theatre, makeup is also a part. The only good theatre makeup artists we had earlier are now either dead or have stopped working. There has been a huge gap since they left and we are yet to meet any good artists. We want our children to learn the basics of makeup, and how to make up their own characters. If they find some interest, we’ll send them to a bigger place to learn the art, perhaps a 20 or 25-day workshop they can do. Also, Debasish Chatterjee is a fascinating person. He told me that if I said it was a theatre makeup workshop, no one would turn up but if I said it’s for party makeup, everybody would be there!
He concluded by saying that the motto of Shudrka’s theatre has always been the propagation of art, to reflect society as it is rather than trying to enforce change in it. “That is why there are no tickets for the festival. It is an open invitation. I solemnly believe that theatre should be made part of the school curriculum as builds up the confidence and public speaking skills of children. But more than that, it is a pursuit of truth,” he said.