Physical attraction

Gearing up to host his annual theatre festival at Pune in December, the actor-turned-director has done much for his city8217;s cultural life in recent years. Thanks to the festival that he envisioned four years ago, works of powerful playwrights of yesteryears have gained new life on Pune8217;s proscenia.

8220;The festival began as a retrospective to pay tribute to great playwrights,8221; explains Palekar. The first year featured Badal Sarkar, followed by Vijay Tendulkar the next year. The third year, Manipuri master Ratan Thiyam8217;s, Chorus Repertory put up a huge body of his work right from the classic Mahabharat trilogy to his latest Nine Hills One Valley. 8220;That year, many were apprehensive; the plays all being in Manipuri. But finally the response was just overwhelming. It was truly an example of performance breaking the barriers of language and reaching out,8221; says Palekar, taking inspiration for this year8217;s festival called Theatre Beyond Words. 8220;Theatre has its own language. And through this festival we are trying to show how it is possible to think beyond words and sentences and express through the sheer physicality of actors, dance, mime or visual effects like shadow play.8221;

The festival that opens on December 5 will feature the likes of solo mime artist Irshad Panjatan 77, Boston-based Aparna Sindhoor Dance Theatre and Rajat Kapoor8217;s 8216;C8217; for Clown and Hamlet-The Clown Prince. Also featured is a Punjabi play called The Suit, The Hare And The Tortoise by Pondicherry-based Adishakti and a reading of Mohan Rakesh8217;s Chhatriyan. Theatre personality Arundhati Nag will speak on 8216;Why Theatre Festivals?8217; and playwright Ramu Ramanathan will present Curtain Raisers, a DVD demonstrating the experiments in modern European theatre.

The simultaneous lectures and symposia, and the effort at archiving great works through publishing and video-documentation make these festivals truly enriching. When Prithvi Thatre recently paid tribute to

theatre-teacher Satyadev Dubey in its annual festival, finding material on the man was a tough task. The reason simply was that very few had bothered to preserve or archive anything on Dubey. Palekar8212;a student of Dubey8217;s8212;confesses he8217;s guilty of the same crime. 8220;We used to make sketches of stage designs and take notes. When Pratibha Agarwal of Natya Shodh Sansthan in Calcutta asked for that memorabilia for their excellent archive, I didn8217;t have anything to offer,8221; he confesses. 8220;Pratibha looked at me and said 8220;You are a criminal.8221; What we are doing now serves as a kind of penance, I guess,8221; he smiles.