Regional theatre facing infra issues in many places: NSD

Kolkata: Regional theatre all over the country is facing infrastructure issues with the solle exception of Mumbai, a top official of the National School of Drama (NSD) has said. NSD Director Waman Kendre, who was here to attend the inauguration of 8th Theatre Olympics, Kolkata chapter, told PTI the institute is doing its bit to change the situation.

“Not only West Bengal, regional theatre is faced with infrastructural problem all over India, excepting Mumbai,” he said, when asked about the status of regional theatre in the country. “The infrastructure for both watching and staging theatre shows is now poor all over India, excepting in places like Mumbai where the theatre shows have good box office collections and get management backing in terms of better auditorium,” Kendre said.

He said the bridge of exchanging ideas between different regional languages has almost ceased to exist but the NSD will play its role aggressively to find new junctions and cope with the problem. “The previous practice of people writing in other languages, translating, has almost ceased to exist. Many of those people have left us, while some others have grown too old. The NSD is working on building new bridges start new dialogue with the youth, between one language and another,” he said.

Kendre said in the cultural space, theatre has lost its premier position of providing entertainment and is slowly being cornered “mainly because of films, television, internet.”  He said while Shakespearean theatre was promoted by the British all over the globe, Bertolt Brecht was promoted and projected by the German government, Henrik Ibsen was taken by the Norway society the world over, “We have not projected Kalidas, Rabindranath Tagore, Girish Karnad, Vijay Tendulkar and Badal Sircar to different corners of the world.” 

He said the world should know about India’s rich theatre tradition, he said explaining the rationale behind staging the 8th Theatre Olympics which was travelling across 17 Indian cities including Kolkata. Theatre personality Rudraprasad Sengupa regretted the poor audience at an international theatre festival in the city where foreign theatre groups were performing.

The Kolkata leg of the international theatre festival, organised for the first time in India, was inaugurated with the staging of Bhojpuri play ‘Bidesiya’. The festival will conclude on March 13 with 21 theatre productions including English and other foreign and regional languages in both verbal and non-verbal forms staged across three venues.

The 21 productions include five foreign theatre groups – Bangladesh (Morshokam), Sri Lanka (Pyramus & Thisby), Spain (The World Around 80 Boxes), Germany (Compassion: The History of Machine Gun), and Azerbaijan (Punishment). The ‘Theatre Olympics’ had already been held in Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram and Bhubaneswar.