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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

  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 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…

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…