From the Bard to Manto, NSD theatre fest kicks off

In its 25th year, BRM will stage over 65 plays in Hindi, English, Assamese, Bengali, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Marathi, Malayalam, Chhattisgarhi, Russian and Italian

Frustrated by the Hindi translations of William Shakespeare’s works available to him, playwright Amitosh Nagpal picked up his pen and infused colloquial Hindi, some Bhojpuri and even gibberish into Twelfth Night. This was 13 years ago, and the result was director Atul Kumar’s Piya Behrupiya, the musical, which played to packed houses in every city it ever travelled to – Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Ahmedabad, even London, where it was staged at the Globe Theatre – for 11 years. “I couldn’t relate to the translations, so I did my own,” said Nagpal.

‘Middle Class Dream of a Summer’s Night’, a play directed by Amitosh Nagpal, will be staged at Kamani Auditorium as part of NSD’s Bharat Rang Mahotsav on February 9. (Courtesy: Amitosh Nagpal)

On February 9, he returns to Delhi with Middle Class Dream of a Summer’s Night, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as a part of the National School of Drama’s annual theatre festival, Bharat Rang Mahotsav (BRM). “This one is in our very specific ways of speaking English – Telugu-English, Assamese English. The play mostly explores the chaos in the lives of the middle-class. This is the first time it’s being staged in Delhi,” said Nagpal.

A constant in Delhi’s cultural calendar, BRM begins on Wednesday and goes on till February 16. In its 25th year, BRM will stage over 65 plays in Hindi, English, Assamese, Bengali, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Marathi, Malayalam, Chhattisgarhi, Russian and Italian across NSD, LTG Auditorium, Kamani Auditorium, and the Shri Ram Centre. The festival was inaugurated on Tuesday.

The highlight of the festival is Agra Bazar, iconic playwright Habib Tanvir’s musical masterpiece – based on the life of Nazeer Akbarabadi, an Urdu poet – which was first staged in 1954. Bhopal-based theatre group, Naya Theatre, which was founded by Tanvir in the 1950s, is presenting the play on February 13.

Apart from this, there is also Neelam Mansingh Chaudhary’s adaptation of five stories by Sadat Hasan Manto, called Tamasha – in Malayalam – on February 14. “When I spoke to Abhilash Pillai, director of the School of Drama and Fine Arts, Thrissur, I realised that a lot of people in Kerala are not familiar with Manto’s work... I do not speak Malayalam, and the artistes I have worked with do not speak much Hindi. This was a challenging task but not impossible. The theme of the play is ‘loss’ — loss of innocence, loss of a loved one.”

From Mumbai, there is Nadira Babbar’s Farida, and Badal Sircar’s Ek Madhur Prem Kahani Urf Pagla Ghoda; a non-verbal play from Prague, Images of Love; and NSD Repertory Co.’s staging of Hindi writer Mohan Rakesh’s Adhe Adhure. NSD officials said that this is the first time that the festival will be held outside the country too, with satellite chapters in Nepal and Sri Lanka.