Natsamrat has been at the forefront of Capital’s amateur theatre movement for the last 20 years, presenting entertaining and socially conscious theatre, participating in the prestigious theatre festivals and organising every year theatre festival featuring work of leading theatre directors. Under the inspiring guidance of its founding director Shyam Kumar, a seasoned director and actor, Natsamrat has instituted awards which are given away every year to theatre practitioners – director, actor (male and female), playwright, backstage technician and critic – of eminence. It has embarked on yet another laudable venture to provide creative platform to budding directors titled “Natsamrat Navodit Natya Samaroh” which was held at Muktadhara Auditorium recently.
Six plays with themes like young love, pain of festering wounds caused by the Partition, biting satire on corruption and suppression of the masses by the State were staged with considerable skill, bringing to the fore the talents of budding directors.
Unrequited love
The festival opened with “Mohobbatnaama” presented by Natsamrat under the direction of Sunil Kumar which deals with the pain of unrequited love. Sunil has been involved in the theatre scene of Delhi as a director and playwright for half a decade now. “Mohobbatnaama”, which is written by him, captures realistically how two young people start loving each other while grappling with solving conflict caused by a car accident. The world they live in is humdrum, colourless and conventional. They are victims of conflicting instincts like hate, misunderstanding and love. Possessed by the sense of ego, they are unable to communicate their love for each other. They depart with painful memories of bitter love-hate relationship.
The director has treated his production with down to earth realism to capture the everyday rhythm of life in a metropolis, offering a few moments of humour. The production projects a social milieu marred by struggle and suppressed by convention where there is no place for love. Priyanka Sharma as Noor who confronts Rehan mostly in angry postures lives her character with all its inner conflicts and muffled desires.
Artistic director of the Vayam Performing Arts Society, Amit Tiwari is a prominent amateur theatre director and is a well known name in the campus theatre scene. Under his direction, Vayam Performing Arts Society presented “Raavi Paar” at the festival. Written by Gulzar, the play is structured round a farmer's home who dearly loves his land. The farmer is at peace with his life and with the village. In the wake of declaration of Indian Independence, echoes of fear, abduction and forced migration reach his village which grows louder and deafening, telling about carnage and large scale migration of Hindus and Sikhs to India. Alone, one farmer is determined to stay in his village. In an accident, he dies. His wife too refuses to leave their village. But her son and his wife with twin infants leave for India, boarding on an overcrowded and suffocating train. The tragedy becomes most shocking when one of the twins dies and the mother inadvertently throws the normal infant into the river Raavi instead to the dead one.
The director has aptly designed his production, especially the mass scenes. The last scene is remarkable for its searing pathos which leaves the audience shattered and shocked. The offstage sounds, and lighting effects create bloody backdrop for the action. The production is infused with frenzied undercurrents. Khushi, as the mother of twins, creates a moving portrait of the deeply worried and terribly terrorised mother confronting an unknown and glooming future.
Written and directed by Prince Singh Rajput, “Antardrishti” makes an attempt to explore the inner recess of smitten hearts of lovers that blossomed when they were college students. Abruptly, they departed after the final year examinations were over. For years, they nursed sweet-bitter memories of their youthful love, shy and not fully expressed. After a long interval, they find themselves working in an office housed in a ramshackle building yet to be renovated.
Presented by Adaakar Theatre Society, the director has evolved an innovative device to shift the action from present to past and vice versa through the reading of letters by lovers which remained undelivered and abandoned in a cupboard. The lovers – Drishti and Pushkar – enact their unrequited love as the two employees – Omkar and Tejaswani – read out these letters with great passion. Towards the denouement, it is revealed that it is in fact the true story of Omkar and Tejaswani who continue to suffer the pain of unrequited love.
The director has captured the rhythm or routine life, eschewing high emotionalism which enables him to make his characters recognisable. They give fine performances marked by restraint with a tinge of sadness.
Theatreleela Acting Studio presented Manav Kaul's acclaimed play ‘Park” at the festival. Directed by Varun Sharma, the production is neat, adequately rehearsed and brilliantly acted, perceptibly bringing to the fore the metaphoric meaning of the play about chaotic human condition and flawed education system. The three characters in the play have been drawn from the run-of-the mill social strata that seem to be suffering some kind of psychiatric aberration with no aim in life. The vivid and pithy dialogue, humour, satire and irony, and actors’ fine craft all create a production that captures the attention of the audience.
Manish Joshi’s “Patloon” is a severe indictment of an exploitative society in which the dispossessed has to struggle even for dreaming a better life let alone achieving it. This play was presented by Aahang under the direction of Rohit Sharma. Though the production managed to convey the basic philosophical kernel of the play, there are loose ends which need to be bounded up.
The festival concluded with Fantasy Theatre Group's presentation of Bharatendu Harishchandra's celebrated play “Andher Nagri Chaupat Raja” under the direction of Rati Sharma. Her attempt to change the structure of the original script and to treat it as a mare farce diluted the play’s sharp edge of satire on a corrupt society ruled by a thoughtless ruler.
