Capital sets for a theatrical extravaganza

curtain raiser

Theatre-lovers in the City can now look forward to another burst of ‘theatrics’ as the eight shortlisted productions for Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards (META) are all set to be staged in the Capital.

From the 300 entries that were received this year from across the country, the eight productions that  have made it to the 13 categories are - Lillete Dubey’s 9 Parts of Desire (Mumbai), Praveen Kumar Gunjan’s Gabarghichor (Begusarai), Faraz Khan’s The Open Couple (Hyderabad), Joseph Jon’s Purushasukta (Bangalore), Liju Krishna’s
 Moment Just before Death (Thrissur), MD Pallavi and Sophia Stepf’s C Sharp C Blunt (Bangalore), Atul Kumar’s Piya Behrupia (Mumbai) and MG Jyothish’s Macbeth (Thiruvananthpuram).

The line-up sounds as interesting as it could be since it is a perfect amalgamation of regional, Hindi and English plays that recognise the diverse aspects of theatre production. Three of these are in English, two in Hindi, two in Malayalam and one is
multilingual.

Commencing from today evening, the festival will showcase Gabarghichor at Kamani Auditorium and C Sharp C Blunt at LTG. While in the former, Gabarghichor finds himself caught in a battle between his long-lost biological father, his mother and another man claiming to be his father; in the latter realms of digital dramaturgy, repetition and user choices to create a new hybrid form of theatre, meet the performance art.

The following day will stage Purushasukta at LTG and Macbeth at Kamani. The play Purushasukta speaks about the cosmic being. It is the most popular hymn found in all Vedas and used in almost every ritual. Contrarily, Macbeth is a stylised adaptation in Malayalam and is concerned with the psychological
realms of the central character, Macbeth.

The third day has been scheduled to showcase Moment Just before Death at LTG and The Open Couple at Kamani. The former sounds promising since it revolves around an old man, whose body sweeps through evanescent memories, pleasant smell of tender toddy, wild flowers drenched in longing and the endless waiting for
his own coffin.

The weekend will kickstart with the much celebrated play Piya Behrupia (which will be staged on March 7) and conclude with 9 Parts of Desire on March 8.