Theatre festivals besides showcasing a variety of theatre are also venues for bonhomie amidst a buzzing atmosphere. The annual Prithvi festival in Mumbai is one of those affairs where people from all walks of life congregate to celebrate the spirit of theatre. Everyone comes to be entertained and the buffet on offer is welcomed with all its typical features ranging from the avoidable and ordinary to the wholesome and delicious. And of course, those who offer this theatrical fare are more than willing to experiment with the most audacious of ideas.
I can't imagine as yet a more solid example of such experimentation as was conveyed by 36 GHANTE, a project undertaken by Rahul Da Cunha's theatre company, 'Rage' for the Prithvi Festival of 2005'. The idea was conceived by Shernaz Patel, a well-known actor and one of the important members of the group. Simply stated, her idea was as follows-
12 leading playwrights had to write a ten to fifteen minute play on a given theme (each playwright was given the same theme- "All the world's a stage..." from Act 1; scene II of Shakespeare's AS YOU LIKE IT). The chosen men of letters however had to do so in the span of 12 hours. Once the scripts were ready, 12 notable directors were given a script each and were asked to think of envisaging it for the stage. They too were given 12 hours. Come next morning and these 12 directors chose actors from amongst 48 of Mumbai's prominent actors to put those scripts into action. The time available to them was of course 12 hours! Get the picture? If not, get the calculator.
This 36-hour, multi-lingual race against time was thus honoured in front of a packed audience who with their cheering calls had already set the pace for the performance to enfold. The list of participants obviously read like the who's who of the Mumbai theatre scene. In a near to perfect tribute to the stage and its undying saga, 36 GHANTE raged on from 9 pm till almost about 1 am. Undoubtedly the evening was immediately heralded as a success even by the most skeptical amongst us.
