The Graduates

“We’ve been wanting to take the showcase on a tour for some time now,and it has been possible only with the support and collaboration of Panjab University’s Department of Indian Theatre,” says theatre director,Tripurari Sharma,who is also the playwright and associate professor. She hopes the event will be a learning experience for all.

It will showcase six productions,wherein each of the student director strives to find his/ her own language to reflect contemporary politics and devise an idiom to communicate with the audience. Each production promises to be unique — some are developed from texts,some are taken from short stories — interspersed with interactive performances such as the use of installations and games,so as to get the audiences involved.

“Theatre in India is constantly evolving and all these are part of the dynamics of telling a story in unusual and challenging ways — new to see but not necessarily to understand,’’ eminent theatre personality Neelam Man Singh Chowdhry pitches in.

This festival,adds Sharma,has emerged out of the students’ own experiences and is a coming together of their evocative work — with each one of them having something to say that concerns us. “The actors’ contribution is massive as the directors have worked in tandem with their batchmates to conceptualise each play,” she adds.

For instance,Mirage,a play based on Kalidasa’s Ritusamhara and directed by Loitongbam Paringangba,is an attempt to depict the existential positioning between desire and despair.

Taking Manipur as an example of a place where chaos prevails,people’s desire for peace is manifested through Ritusamhara. On the other hand,Ferrous and Zero One are interactive performances. “There is no distance and barrier of any kind here,’’ Sharma says. She says Zero One explores the response of the performer as well as the viewer in both the states of living and dying.

Then there is Tota Bola,which is based on Chandrasekhar Kambar’s Jokumarswami and Jannat Mahal based on Fakir Mohammed Katpadi’s Zulekha — both plays will be staged in open spaces and not on stage. “These works are not NSD’s vision,but the students’ own vision. They are not stating the obvious but trying to go beyond it,and each one is trying to work in his own way,there are no set platforms,’’ says Sharma.

She says she appreciates and supports their exploration of inner truth and yearning,and their courage to showcase personal feelings and issues in front of audiences. “The drama may be less,but the poetry is more — these young directors and actors are waking us up to the life around us,’’ Sharma says. The stage is set.

The Graduate Show begins on July 25 at Tagore Theatre. Passes available at the venue