A performance at the Greenwood festival. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya

The fifth edition of the Greenwood Theatre Festival, organised by Bengal Shrachi from October 30-November 7, has expanded this year to showcase more talent from the districts. It is unfortunate that the audience turnout is pretty low despite the inspired performances most groups are coming up with.

Using a linear story-telling method in the traditional pala form, Kalyani Kalamandalam from Nadia staged Molua Sundarir Pala on October 31, exploring the life of a woman who stands up against oppression.

The two sutradhars, who played the role of a comic chorus lamenting the turn of events but unable to intervene, were impressive.

Sanskritik Shantipur, also from Nadia, which performed Ramgaan the following day, used a similar method, fusing music and dialogue to carry the story forward.

Ramgaan offered a subaltern, feminist take on the chapter from the Ramayana where women like Taraka and Surpanakha, reduced to demons in the epic, find a voice. Surpanakha is an Adivasi molested by Rama and Laksman, while Taraka fiercely fights for her land.

City groups like Bohubrihi, on the other hand, left much to be desired. The play, Neil Simon’s Chapter Two, directed by Ashoke Viswanathan (who also played the protagonist George Schneider), tried to cover up for deficiencies in performance by using jazz tunes as filler between scenes.

Narrating the second chapter in the life of widower Schneider, the play lapsed into a boring farce with loudly-mouthed dialogues on marital strife between Schneider and his second wife Jenny.

The young actress who essayed Fay, the bored wife out to have an affair, was the saving grace in the play that reserved the best lines for Viswanathan’s Schneider.

Wanted: spotlight

Othello encore : Johan Botha plays Othello and Krassimira Stoyanova is Desdemona during a dress rehearsal of Guiseppe Verdi’s Othello in Vienna’s state opera; (below) Nadia Krasteva, first from left, as Emilia. (Reuters)

Why media cold shoulders theatre was the topic of a panel discussion at Oxford Bookstore that was meant to draw in audiences for the Theatrecian production Transplant.

Chaired by Sujata Sen, director of British Council (East India), the panel included theatre critic Ananda Lal, Sumit Roy of Red Curtain and Tathagata Chowdhury of Theatrecian.

Roy, who felt theatre needed to improve in quality and market itself better, said: “It is theatre which ignores media. We cannot whine that the media ignores us. We have to make them sit up and listen.”

The need to improve quality of the productions was echoed by audience member Harsh Khorana: “There were only two groups which responded to newspaper reports of Quasar Padamsee selecting city plays for Thespo, his theatre festival. But none of the groups met the basic standards.”

While Roy stressed the commercial aspect, Lal, who directs the Jadavpur University English department production every year, blamed the media for dwelling too much on “politics, sports and Page 3”.

“Today’s media is interested in money. Since there is no money to be had in theatre, the media is not interested in it. Theatre, in the 150 years of its history, was never meant to be profitable,” said Lal.

“It is the media’s job to spot quality productions and promote them,” felt Chowdhury, the third speaker of the evening.

To the people

Augusto Boal: Voice of protest

As a perfect finale to Muktadhara II celebrating the Theatre of the Oppressed, its visionary founder Brazilian writer Augusto Boal announced the formation of the Federation of Theatre of the Oppressed (TO), India, on October 31.

The federation evolved as a result of the practice of TO in various parts of the country ever since Jana Sanskriti, based in Bengal, began the movement in the 1990s. TO organisations do theatre to raise awareness on different issues and provoke spectators to think and respond for themselves.

The oppressed speak, act and express their individual views and in the process learn to put those ideas to use in real life and become Spect-actors. TO works on the lines of Boal’s view that “artistic creativity is inherent to all human beings”. Currently, there are TO organisations in nine Indian states — Bengal, Orissa, Tripura, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Rajasthan. Spreading theatre of the oppressed to still more parts of India is the aim of the federation.