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While accepting the award for Outstanding Male Actor, Shardul Bhardwaj from the play LINE spoke about how participating in Thespo was a big deal for his theatre group from Delhi. Without Thespo, he said, his team would have found it difficult to access an audience in Mumbai and perform at a prestigious venue like Prithvi Theatre. In those few words, the young actor summed up the essence of Thespo- the annual youth theatre festival, which has been part of the Mumbai theatre landscape for the last 14 years.
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LINE and NAAV |
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Thespo 14 ended with two plays -- LINE and NAAV -- bagging most of the top honours. Of the five full-length plays presented at the festival, three were original scripts; three were Marathi productions; there were two groups from Pune, two from Mumbai and one from Delhi. Akshay Tanksale (from the play APRADHI SUGANDH) won the award for Outstanding Actor in a Supporting Role, Mayuri Kanetkar ( from the play NAAV) won Outstanding Female Actor, Outstanding Director went to Gautam Arora and Neel Sengupta for LINE and the play also bagged the award for the Best Play. Finally, Bhushan Bhimrao Patil also took away the award for Outstanding New Writing for NAAV.
For the last few years Marathi productions have occupied most slots in the final Thespo list and the trend continued this year too. Another interesting observation about this year's plays was that each of the original scripts dealt with the figure of the father. GOD=FATHER portrayed a young man's struggle to accept his father's religious beliefs, BEING SARTAK MAJUMDAR tread the 'Cats in the Cradle' line, while NAAV was about a mother's struggle to get her daughter to school, as the father does not want to lend his name to her. Of the three, the play that stood out was NAAV. The group dealt with the subject with a sense of maturity and sincerity.
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BEING SARTAK MAJUMDAR |
| Another common factor that stood out with the plays this year (and this aspect seems to have seeped in from what is happening on the commercial stage) was the abuse of pop culture references. BEING SARTAK MAJUMDAR drew heavily from current television programming while GOD=FATHER caricatured the many lifestyle gurus that have been made popular by late night television spots. The problem with these references was that while they were intrinsic to the script, the playwrights seemed to have settled for the first option that would have occurred to them, rather than explore the different ways to present their point of view. A little extra effort could have benefitted both plays. The popular TV and film references did bring in the laughs but those laughs were for borrowed and not original writing.
Most plays in the festival also seemed to drag. Sequences that ought to have been tighter went on and on. The same points were repeated; sometimes in the same manner even. It almost seemed as if the plays were stretched to adhere to the 1-hour time frame that the festival requires.
This year, the award for Best Production Design and Best Supporting Female actor were not given. There weren't too many standout roles for the girls to show off their talent. However, in the case of production design, all the participating groups fell short. Whether it was lights, sound or set design, not one among these plays made an impact and this was disheartening. A play is as much about stagecraft as it is about the acting and the script.
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GOD=FATHER |
| However, the two plays that swept most of the awards, certainly deserve to come back to the stage via the platform Thespo @ Prithvi. If they manage to factor in a few tweaks, that will only be for the betterment of the play. Those productions that didn't make a mark should not give up either because they do have some interesting ideas and our stage must continue to showcase work by young people.
Finally, the one thing that struck me the most in the festival was how the entire cast of GOD=FATHER populated the last scene of LINE. The Delhi group could obviously not have brought along so many cast members just for one scene and the large GOD=FATHER team graciously stepped in. That was an exemplary show of the 'theatre spirit' and, for me, the highlight of the festival.
*Aditi Sharma enjoys watching theatre and writing about it.
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