Soumyak Kanti De Biswas, all of twenty-three years, looks fresh out of college. Kanti, as he is known in theatre circles in Kolkata, is busy rehearsing Onko
Experimenting behind the curtain to come up with new trends on stageKOLKATA: Soumyak Kanti De Biswas, all of twenty-three years, looks fresh out of college. Kanti, as he is known in theatre circles in Kolkata, is busy rehearsing Onko, his latest directorial venture and one of the seven plays at the eighth Odeon theatre festival, which is conceived and developed by Vodafone.
Onko, Kanti tells DNA, came from “nothing.” We started out on our rehearsals without a script. A group of friends just took to the floor and bounced off ideas in acting, music, sets etc and that’s how Onko began.”
Kanti could well be representative of the changing theatre scene in Kolkata, where the stress, of late, seems to be on experimentation and staging scripts penned or directed by local young artistes.
Well-known theatre personality Usha Ganguly says, indeed, curtains are going up on some new trends: “Everything about theatre in Kolkata has become extremely experimental. Previously, acting, sets, designs etc were too realistic.”
She illustrates that she staged Rudali with an extremely minimalist feel, with just two matkas and one stringed cot as stage props.
She recalls Kaushik Sen, another young stage personality trying out something new. Kaushik recently worked on a production with practically no sets!
“I also find it heartening that the focus is shifting to plays scripted by Indian authors. Previously, the thrust was on Shakespeare, Ibsen, Luigi Pirandillo, Brecht and other well-known European playwrights. But that trend is changing.”
She mentions Boorhi Kaki, another entry at Odeon this year, written by Munsi Premchand and directed by Gautam Haldar, yet another Young Turk from Bengal. “It’s a great experience to be directed by a young person and I am enjoying it,” Ganguly says.
Ananda Lal, theatre critic and professor of English at Jadavpur University, is propagating educational theatre by taking his university productions to the masses.
Endorsing this view, Sridhar Rao, chief executive officer, Vodafone Essar East, said:
“This year, we have taken Odeon to the college level to bring in the young crowd.”
But is theatre fighting a battle for eyeballs with multiplexes and television reality shows? Says Lal: “Theatre people are fighters. No medium is as interactive as theatre and that is why an increasing number of youngsters are involved with it today.”
Usha Ganguly offers some interesting figures. Of the one crore people involved in theatre today, 75% are youngsters!
m_madhumita@dnaindia.net 
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