Interpreting Ibsen
P. ANIMA
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The second Delhi Ibsen Festival is a heady mix of international and national productions.
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RAINBOW SCENES (Clockwise from top left ) From the Egyptian play "Nora's Doors", Amal Allana's "Metropolis", Chinese production "Hedda Gabler" and Bangladeshi play "The Communicator".
N orwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's works will blur the barriers of culture, language and sensibility at the upcoming second Delhi Ibsen festival. If his enduring protagonist Nora (from “A Doll's House”) finds understanding in an Egyptian setting, his Hedda Gabler realises herself in a grand Chinese opera, and another masterpiece, “Lady from the Sea”, gets interpretations from an Iranian and Indian perspective.
After gathering attention with its maiden outing last year, the festival returns bigger, boasting the presence of an interesting array of players, both internationally and nationally this time. The event, on from December 3 to 14, will bring in ten contemporary readings of Ibsen through the productions of five Indian and five foreign directors.
The Dramatic Arts and Design Academy (DADA) which brings the festival under the auspices of the Norwegian Embassy, has narrowed in on productions from the Netherlands, Iran, Egypt, China and Bangladesh as well as works of Indian directors Amal Allana, Jyotish M.G., Santanu Bose, Neeraj Kabi and Zuleikha Chaudhari.
Nissar Allana, director, DADA, says it is the success of the last festival that assured him that “we were moving in the right direction.” When the Norwegian embassy approached him with the Ibsen project he took it up for a couple of reasons. “There are a lot of things we can do about Ibsen. I thought I will do the project if it can be related to an Indian audience and also help the Indian theatre movement,” he says.
The turn of the millennium has seen a surge in interest in Ibsen with the playwright's works being re-read in a contemporary setting and his ideas of freedom and women's emancipation realising new meanings. Allana points out Ibsen's popularity in the Middle East and his texts' latent ability to mirror social issues in newly developing democracies.
Nissar Allana.
Last year, Ratan Thiyam, Anuradha Kapur and Neelam Mansingh brought in diverse readings of Ibsen from a Manipuri, Punjabi and urban perspective at this specialist festival. This time, Allana says, the focus is on Ibsen's impact on directors, most of whom are in their 30s and 40s. “Their sensibility is different and the productions will show how they respond to Ibsen,” he says.
A committee gets together, talks and analyses the works of potential participants before they are commissioned to work on productions related to Ibsen. With Ibsen as the starting point, the directors are allowed to find their own stories. Seminars are an integral part of the festival where the theorists are encouraged to closely interact with the creative artistes. The aim is to bridge the gap between theory and practice in the study of theatre, says Allana.
Delhi Ibsen Festival: From
December 3 to 14
The venues: LTG and Kamani auditoriums
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