Fringe Benefits

One of these plays is Tagore’s Rakta Karabi (January 12),about a mythical country where everybody is an incomplete person. Tagore meant his “incomplete humans” in spiritual terms,but Kolkata-based Shyambazar Anyadesh presents this through the physical inability of its blind actors. “When the audience sees a blind person carrying a lamp,it may help those of us with eyes to see better,” says director Subhashis Gangopadhyay. The play has 30 partially or completely blind actors,several of them theatre professionals. Gangopadhyay,who has been working with blind actors since 1994,adds,“The protagonist Nandini,who offers hope and salvation to this mythical land,has been depicted through three actors. This is our way of saying that one person alone cannot be the agent of change,progress is a group effort.”

Amal Allana,chairperson of NSD,will be among those watching Rakta Karabi closely. “It’s encouraging how the fringe communities are claiming a bigger space and reaching out to a national audience,” she says. Kino Kaon (January 22),she adds,is another “political” story of suppression,this time of the marginalised community of dwarfs. Fittingly,the play has been enacted by a troupe of dwarfs from Dapon,an Assam-based group.

“We wanted to highlight how most people treat dwarfs like aliens from another planet,” says director Pabitra Rabha. The action in Kino Kaon largely unfolds on an elevated stage that descends to the ground level as the complex story of pain,suffering,desire and dreams comes to a close. “After the first few moments,the audience will forget they are watching dwarfs. We’ll think of them as actors and human beings rather than as a different or lesser people,” says Rabha,a 2003 NSD graduate who has been working with dwarfs from Assam since 2008.

Unlike the 23 dwarf actors of Dapon,the four transgenders in Santaap are new to the stage. Santaap (January 22),a tale of Gangamma,a ruthless landlady,and the intrepid Panciamma,a lower caste woman who defies Gangamma’s dictates,is full of comic scenes. “It’s a story of suppression but told through humour,” explains Ashwini Kasi,an actor and lighting expert,who is part of the Chennai-based group called Kattiyakkari. “We asked NGOs if they knew of any transgenders interested in acting. We shortlisted four transgenders for a workshop and found them to be keen actors,” says Kasi. The play has been staged across Tamil Nadu and even at the Thrissur International Theatre Festival.

Bharat Rang Mahotsav will be held at various theatres in Mandi House from January 8 to 22. Contact: 23073647