Ahmedabad is hosting two shows of an adaptation from the much-looked upto repertoire of candid short stories of the well known writer late Sadat Hasan Manto who lived a short biological life of 43 years but continues to live in…

The only human presence in this world is of the Narrator, who is a ragpicker – her name is Shakuntala Devi (Shubha Nigam). The rest of them are ‘despicable’ creatures, the scum of society -with one exception all street dogs.…

It’s Andrew Lloyd Webber all the way. His music expresses what love is in his masterpiece The Phantom of the Opera and in the process proves music to be the best carrier of the most delicate and the noblest human…

At the 79th and concluding show of performing arts Abhivyakti Edition Three it was felt the City Project had triggered fresh creative ideas in a few cases. At the show on March 1 it was Anti Clock’s an hour-long play…

At the semifinals of the 32nd All Gujarat Intercollegiate One-act competition last January the number of participating colleges went down to eighteen. At the same time, as every year, there were welcome surprises. Young minds are so gifted and with…

Rarely does a house full to capacity find a dramatic performance create an experience the viewers relate to for full two hours and watch and listen to its characters in such silence that they would hear one another breathe. When…

You cannot keep count of the number of segments in Mallika Sarabhai’s creative stage performance V for … on the final day of Natarani’s Sunday to Sunday Theatre Festival. And each segment is perfectly chiselled with all its details. It…

Isheeta Ganguly, who brought an exhilarating play Three Women to a similar theatre festival five years ago, presented three more interactive young women, only one of whom is Tagore’s unlike in the earlier play, in Chitra and Chaitali on the…

The solo performance Dwija by V Balakrishnan, Chennai-based Theatre Nisha’s artistic director and actor last Thursday (Day Four) in Natarani’s theatre festival stood out as a vigorous one enumerating and analyzing episodes from Guru Drona’s life and work beginning with…

Under the direction of Rupesh Tillu, who has specialized in Physical Theatre, Theatre act staged Shakuntala – Agar Pura Kar Paye on Wednesday at Natarani’s week-long Theatre Festival seeking to present a sample of the variety of representative forms in…

The Adi Shakti theatre group from near Pondicherry brought Bali, their first production without Veenapani Chawla, to Natarani as part of its ongoing Theatre Festival. You sit up and watch it for the special theatre style in which it is…

Qissa Kothi’s Romeo Ravidas और Juliet Devi, staged at Natarani on Day Two of its Sunday to Sunday Theatre Festival offers a different kind of experience. Pretty engaging in form and the communication it makes, it avoids being theatrical. With a…

Mein Jagjit on last Saturday turned out to be a sweet tribute to the late gazal maestro! Notwithstanding its obvious linear narrative interspersed with a rendition of his famous gazals, this stage presentation coming more than a week after his…

Of late there have been welcome developments in local theatre. Youngsters have been taking an active interest in scripting, direction, acting and other aspects of theatre with novel ideas and that has been attracting young viewers to it in small-size…

Young actors of Gujarati theatre led by Ankit Gor and Gaurang Anand in Children of Karnad, a reading performance in Hindi held at Studio One Third last Thursday, got the audience to know the significance of Girish Karnad (1938-2019) as…

Kabir Thakore created Scrapyard – The Theatre a few years ago out of the scrap of his old bungalow. At this unusual theatre space now through a play he has written and directed for children and the child in us…

Pythagoras, which was staged on Sunday as the concluding performance of over a two-week long ‘summer festival’ of arts in Ahmedabad Abhivyakti Edition Two to a nearly packed Dinesh Hall despite distractions in a refreshing style is reassuringly indicative of…

Experimentation is a double-edged sword and it can cut where it is not meant to! A play is also not a mere story without a definitive text. For, it is through this definiteness of the text that a play starts…

Abhivyakti in its second edition this year, alongside giving space, both in the literal and figurative sense, to upcoming local talent, invited Rakt Kalyan, Girish Karnad’s famous Kannada play Tale Danda (1989), also translated by him into English as Death…

Abhivyakti in its Edition 2 is before us right in the summer – or in its break for the younger lot of students. While this Edition, as its itinerary of a fortnight indicates, is shorter in duration compared to Edition…

Scrapyard is a theatrical entity which grew out of the Rangmanal of Pritamnagar Akhada and has remained meaningfully active for some years now from the ‘yard’ like space in Paldi that specifies its name. Besides plays and theatrical readings, it…

Carnatic vocalist-activist TM Krishna, who uses his talents to bring down traditional power structures, talks to us about why we need to be asking more questions today as artists.  TM Krishna is a man of many talents and opinions. Like…

The interaction that followed Naomi Ackerman’s 50-minute solo performance Flowers are not Enough at Natarani last Friday as the inaugural presentation in the three-day 40th Vikram Sarabhai International Art Festival was as long as the performance. No one left nearly…

With deft touches, Abhinay Banker creates (Day Six, Sunday to Sunday Theatre Festival) characters, both major and minor, and the time they belong to in his two-act play Jaane Vo Kaise Log The at Natarani amphitheatre chock-a-block dominantly with keen…

The Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi, though a throbbing national cultural entity, has remained a distant existence for Ahmedabad all these years. With twin objectives its current Chairman Shekhar Sen, a versatile performing artist himself, set to it, it came…

It was just as well that Ratan Thiyam’s Macbeth, SNA’s final performance at the Amphitheatre of the Gujarat University, was in Manipuri, the language nearly everyone in the audience did not understand. It was through its recurring strong visual motif…

How do you commemorate an existence that had something of the Being she had kinship with? For those who knew her and grew up breathing the breath of her breath Mrinalini Sarabhai, who straddled a century as a legendary Bharatanatyam…

Venturing to capture the range and depth of poet Zaverchand Meghani’s stature in a two-hour performance is like trying to hold a roaring ocean in your hand. All you get to do is to have a palmful of water which…

It is heartening to see in recent weeks young amateur performers taking theatre seriously, not as a medium of light entertainment. Hunting the Sun in English at Scrapyard at its second show last Sunday kept the viewers, both young and elderly,…

At a single Reading Performance (HK Hall, September 6) of Mahesh Dattani’s famous play Tara by teachers of English, final-year students of Special English must have understood its theme and characters much better than during many hours in the class.…

A playwright, Vijay Tendulkar once observed, should act in a play and see how a character and his voice are projected. Those who wish to be actors need to do plays like his Shantata! Court Chaalu Aahe! Vijay Tendulkar is…

Four young actors – amateur till now, threatening (read poised) to burst into the mainstream of theatre – nearly fully identify with their characters and the situation they are in. The idea of poetry and the fancy it evokes have…

It’s heartening to see the late playwright and theatre person Hasmukh Baradi’s legacy being carried forward under the banner of Theatre Media Centre by his daughter Manvita and close colleagues. They presented two one-acts, Mahemano O Vhala and Gallery Room…

Semicolon, in Hindi, at Ouroboros gives glimpses of the magic theatre is capable of. Watching it, just as performing it for the actors, becomes an intensely engaging experience. There are many factors that produce this experience. The theme of a…

The final day’s performance of Mahesh Elkunchwar’s Atmakatha, directed by Vinay Sharma, proved an unplanned celebratory finale of the 15-day Theatre Olympics (Ahmedabad). Dramatic art ascended its peak in Kolkata-based Padatik’s production. The overflowing theatre-lovers at the Tagore Hall appreciated even…

God said, ‘Let there be light’, and the first rays of light spread in the universe making all its beauty visible. Bansi Kaul said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light on a small world inhabited by people like…

Getting people to laugh with tasteless dialogue is the vulgarized theatre popular in perhaps all languages today at least in India. The function of theatre is not to entertain the audience cheaply, yenakena prakaarena. Theatre has a function, light or…

Dinesh Yadav’s Jogiyaar Mahabharat at the Theatre Olympics created a unique kind of theatre experience for everyone in the fully packed auditorium at the Tagore Hall on Wednesday. Still on a high following the 70-minute joyous performance for which there was…

Theatre Olympics at the Tagore Hall turned folksy on the World Theatre Day on Tuesday. Bharatiya Jan Natya Sangh’s Gabarghichoran ke Mai with close to twenty-five members in its cast brings a flavour of a regional folk theatre variety. The…

  Among Marathi people, there has been a rich tradition of intellectuals, social workers and performing artists who keep temptations of material gain at arm’s length and with a low profile remain dedicated to work related to social and political…

In no time were all doubts set to rest on the third day of the ongoing Theatre Olympics at the Tagore Hall. Local coordinator of the event Bhargav Thakkar looked elated that young viewers had nearly packed the auditorium. They…

  Bodhayana wrote Bhagavadajjukeeyam in the 7th century as a satire on Buddhism. His dramatic talent, however, far exceeded his intent and the Sanskrit classic remains a source of interest for many performers. Both translations and performances have been attempted…

In this biographical play, actor Pratik Gandhi portrays one of Gujarat’s boldest authors, Chandrakant Bakshi. Much like a squirrel that runs on barbwire scrupulously yet swiftly, Gandhi’s performance is cautious yet fearless. The intimate theatre space of Ouroboros Art Hub…

A literary creator with an insight into theatre and a noted playwright, Sitanshu Yashashchandra did not merely light the inaugural lamp at the GST-INT One-act Finals (Thakorbhai, Feb 7). Referring to the origin of Natyaveda, he lit up theatre-lovers’ vision…

Last night, the city of Ahmedabad saw ‘Words Have Been Uttered’, a breath-taking celebration of the human ability to ask questions and raise voices to the truth. Galileo is ecstatic in the wake of his discovery of the planetary system.…

In the realm of art, picking up threads from your earlier performance, it is possible to outperform yourself and marvel at the exceptionally significant fresh outcome. Darpana Academy’s Kadak Badshahi seven years ago was certainly an outstanding multidimensional multimedia production…

Worshippers of Goddess Saraswati are known seldom to have the grace of Goddess Lakshmi. Quite a few of those who worship Goddess Lakshmi, on the other hand, have noticeably been beneficiaries of Goddess Saraswati’s grace. Eminent industrialist the late Kasturbhai…

There is not as much poetry in contemporary ghazals as are ghazal writers in number, Rajendra Patel, himself a poet, with rare candour asserted at the Vishwakosh Bhavan while briefly introducing Rajesh Vyas ‘Miskin’, who was to give a talk…

The nip in the air for a change was low and expectations were relatively high on the ground open to the sky at the young theatre writer-director Chintan Pandya’s residence for ‘a unique experience’ in the ‘environmental theatre’ format he…

  That Gujarati-speaking amateurs get together for a difficult experimental theatre production in Hindi even while the mainstream Gujarati theatre, touch wood, has been of late shaping pretty well, is a sign of courage and a labour of love. Meri…

In the tradition of Absurd Drama, we have the legacy of a few dramatic works conceived of in their creators’ most introverted moments post-WW II when they were in turmoil. Like lightning, they blaze a trail to understanding aspects of…

Ratilal Borisagar, an expert on the Gujarati classic Bhadrambhadra, explains the origin of humour in literature and shares how the Gujarati novel tackled the orthodoxy of Indian traditions using satirical narratives. Author Ramanlal Nilkanth’s legendary novel Bhadrambhadra (1900)– about a Sanskrit…

A Gujarati poet gets us to visualise and feel the magnificence of the Supreme Being through His extraordinary creation. A physical description of His visage and limbs of huge proportions is likely, in all probability, to be laughable. Kavi Nanalal…

  A variety of interpretations of Shakespeare’s plays are being essayed on stage the world over during the year of celebrations of his dramatic genius unravelling mysteries of human behaviour particularly in relation to others.  ASTHA presented Atul Kumar’s Khwab-Sa, which…

Whatever scientists say, the moon will continue to have romantic associations and connotations.  A poet has ‘late night conversations with the moon’.  Another imagines the moon to be a balloon coming out from where ‘it’s always green and everyone’s in…

As text and, if competently done, as theatre, Mohan Rakesh’s Aadhe Adhoore (1969)has remained a rich source of reference for dramaturgy and theatre language. I recall that when the first theatre version of the play I saw (besides one in…

  Originality, freshness and suggestion breathe life into theatre. They modestly did in ‘Daabo ane Jamano’ (The Left and the Right One), written and directed by Chirag Modi (GLS Commerce). Ever heard of two chapals having a dialogue on stage?…

Drama in recent years at the all-Gujarat inter-collegiate One-act Competition being organised by Gujarat Samachar Trust and INT (Mumbai) for twenty-nine years has assumed social identity.  All the three plays on the opening day at its two-day Finals on Thursday…

  Theatre at times springs surprises. Navjivan Trust probably with caution invited Ideas Unlimited to its new auditorium – yet another of its young manager’s initiatives to make its activities more friendly to the contemporary world  – for a performance…

Theatre thrills because drama, when at its best, helps feel and understand life better. There is a battle between the haughtily headstrong dacoit Ghelo and circumspectly cool-headed Monghi he has brought into his house unlawfully in Jasvant Thaker Memorial Trust’s…

The subject is explosive. A character in the play is a ganika, whose thick make-up, offensive mannerism and crude language, though without expletives, are outside the socially ‘acceptable’ parameters we consider decent. And yet, Saumya Joshi’s Aaj Jaane ki Zid…

‘What a piece of work is man!’ a Shakespearean hero marvelled.  Romain Rolland declared in 1919 that the human mind is free and that nowhere ever can the gross reality enslave it.  Among those who signed the cherished Declaration were…

  ‘The show is already houseful Sir’. A response that surprised me pleasantly  because the students of Rangayan Theatre & Acting Workshop, who recently explored their acting skills from their masters, are having their debut show completely sold out. My…

Chekov Anton Chekhov is credited with an eye for observation – not just of what is seen but particularly of the psychology underlying it. On this count, all the neatly presented five playlets dramatizing his short stories in Ouroboros’ theatre…

Arpita Dhagat, as I know her, has a brain brimming over with creative ideas and tends to not settle for anything unchallenging. She had prestigious acting prizes before she went to NSD for Design and Theatre Techniques. On returning, she…

Image Credit: Book My Show Yes, Blame it on Yashraj gives viewers an experience of attending a gala wedding where money is lavishly spent and everyone related to the bride or the groom, whether closely or distantly, feels they are…

On my way to the Hall the day SamuraManthan was premiered, I heard it said, ‘It’s House Full!’ Though Aditi Desai had given in recent years three successful plays one after another, I didn’t believe my eyes to see the…