Playground of theatre

At the International Theatre Festival for Children and Young People (Tifli), adults perform for children and young adults to address their issues

Udaya Bhanu Garikipati

Think theatre for children and we see children and young adults performing for an audience. “We have reservations about that kind of theatre because it appears like a classroom for children. There is nothing for them to take home. It is a drill where children become robots and follow orders; The bubbliness and energy is lost,” shares theatre director Udaya Bhanu Garikipati of Bhoomika. He hopes things will change with International Theatre Festival for Children and Young People (Tifli Hyderabad 2017) which begins on December 7. Here the adults perform for children and young adults. “Through this kind of theatre, developed by adults for children, we try to go closer to them and address some of their issues.”

This is ‘Tifli’s fourth edition in Delhi, and third in Hyderabad and Mumbai. The festival at Delhi includes a line-up of 16 plays from which three plays have come to Hyderabad. This year, the country in focus is France as it coincides with the Bonjour India celebrations.

The roster has an eclectic mix of plays and other activities.

Water Prince is a fairytale staged on December 8 by Theatre Nisha from Chennai. An Indo-French production, it tells the story of a water princess, who decides to leave the earth angered by the misuse and abuse she is going through.

Balancing Act is by APAR Pune on December 9 raises relevant points and questions due to our modern lifestyles. The French group Akselere Cie’s Sleeping Beauty on December 10 depicts the story of a modern day lifestyle. Udaya Bhanu points out the festival has been divided to two sections. While the first section includes the plays, the second section has mime (Madhu), storytelling (Deepa Kiran) and puppetry (Padmini). Each play has three shows — 9 30 am, 11 30 am (for school children) and 6 30 pm and every performance will be followed by a workshop.

Speaking on the venue, he reveals State Art Gallery has an auditorium and also gallery space which can be used for the impromptu sessions. “Also, these plays are not meant for large audiences. If it is performed in a place like Ravindra Bharathi, it will be lost on children; They will be sitting like a passive audience. These performances are mostly intimate and interactive with audience which is fun and that cannot happen in a larger venue.”

As a festival director, Udaya Bhanu observes he is doing his bit to spread awareness about this kind of theatre. “Organising is not my forte but the idea is to spread information about it among schools and theatre practitioners so that this genre of theatre also happens in Hyderabad in a big way. Spending a few lakhs on productions and showing them to a few hundreds of children doesn’t work. Local theatre groups should also come forward to take up the genre. That is our agenda.”