Capital Absence at META

The stage is set for the Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards (META),considered the only national award exclusively for theatre in India. “Looking back to seven years ago,I remember how we got only four entries for the first META,” says Ravi Dubey,creative director of the festival that received almost 270 entries this year,of which 10 plays have been shortlisted for the competition that will be held between March 1 and 6.

Scan the list for a Delhi play,and one comes up with a blank. “In my memory,this is the first time that META will not have a Delhi play. I myself am surprised that no Delhi play has made the shortlist this year,” he adds. Last year,Ambedkar aur Gandhi by Asmita Theatre Group,was the only play from Delhi at the festival. Though it played to a packed house,the play about the relationship between Balasaheb and Bapu did not win any award. “Delhi has a lot of good quality work going on,” says Arvind Gaur,director of Asmita,about the city’s omission from META 2012.

Among the plays that will compete in 13 categories this year are Mumbai-based Lillete Dubey’s version of Mohan Rakesh’s Adhe Adhure,a powerful look at marriage that explores fragmentation of the protagonists at individual,familial and social levels,and another Mumbai-based group,Akvarious Productions’s Baghdad Wedding,the tale of three friends,who grapple with their cultural,political and sexual identities,and one wedding that goes horribly wrong. Bharagav Ramakrishnan,a director from Chennai,pays a comic tribute to Alfred Hitchcock in 39 Steps,giving his cult thriller a hilarious makeover. West Bengal-based Manish Mitra takes up Rabindranath Tagore in his play,Journey to Daakghar.

From Assam come the plays Nagamandala,about a cobra and is based on two Kannada folk tales,and A Far Cry,about the

love between a brother and sister in the background of growing insurgency.