The world becomes a stage in Thrissur

ITFoK begins on Sunday with a melange of plays drawn from India and abroad.

The curtain goes up on a fiesta of theatre experiences from January 10 onwards as the eighth edition of the week-long International Theatre Festival of Kerala (ITFoK) begins in Thrissur at the G. Shankara Pillai Cultural complex. “Twenty plays from 12 countries will be performed during the festival. In all there will be 39 performances, including repeats of some of the plays,” says Soorya Krishnamoorthy, festival director and Chairman of the Sangeet Natak Akademi.

For the first time, there will also be a film festival that will showcase six films that are based on theatre. Besides Kaliyattam , the Malayalam cinematic adaptation of Othello , there will be movies based on Shakespeare’s play and also a play from Japan that has been adapted from Kabuki (Japanese theatre).

‘“Body Political’ is the theme of ITFoK 2016. The body is the medium of expression of a dancer or actor on stage. However, bodies are controlled by external powers that decide the parameters of existence of a body. Body then becomes a metaphor for nation, state, or organisation. Various social structures decide the hierarchy of the body, what it will wear, where it will position itself and so on,” says artistic director Sankar Venkateswaran. His artistic note on the festival states: “We bring together tales of our bodies that wage and witness wars; bodies that are waiting, seeking refuge; bodies that are excluded; bodies that are buried, burnt alive, suffocated bodies; bodies that are subject to gendered violence; bodies that are split apart and destroyed; bodies that do not fit within the bounds of race, caste, colour, and gender; and women’s bodies that continue to be the battleground for man’s sexual, social and political wars.”

In keeping with the theme, the festival begins with a contemporary dance, ‘Sharira’, a tribute to Chandralekha, by her troupe and ends with ‘Thoda Dhyan Se’, an award-winning play in Hindi by Mallika Taneja, a solo show that depicts what happens to the ‘body’ in modern Delhi.

The list of plays includes ‘Mariyamma’, perhaps the first play in Malayalam, written by Polachirackkal Kocheeppan Tharakan in 1878. Directed by Sreenath Nair, the play narrates the woes of Mariyamma, an educated Christian woman who is harassed by her in-laws. “Such is the relevance of the play that even today we can relate to it,” says Sreenath.

While the plays explore the different aspects of the ‘body’, another set of plays promise to evoke nostalgia. For the first time, radio plays, once a staple of All India Radio, will be broadcast during the festival. “We have procured the records of 12 plays from AIR. These will be broadcast two times every day. Titans used to take part in the plays and many of them were stalwarts of the theatre movement in Kerala,” says Krishnamoorthy.

Seminars and discussions on theatre will also form an important segment of the festival. While some of the discussions (Meet the director and artiste) will be open to the participation of the public, some will be restricted to directors of plays and festivals, with the audience listening to them discuss their achievements and problems. Another highlight is an adaptation of O.V. Vijayan’s Khasakinte Ithihasam, which has been directed by Deepan Sivaraman.

No delegate passes or tickets will be issued for this theatrical extravaganza. “Instead, we have made arrangements for reservations. Fifty per cent of the seats in a theatre will be made available for online reservations and 40 per cent at the venue. Spectators can reserve their seats now for all the days,” adds Krishnamoorthy.