This theatre festival of socially relevant plays will reach out to the rural audiencesIt's an endeavour to reach out to an audience that has limited channels of entertainment and information. Lack of infrastructure, exposure to arts, restricted funds.there are many reasons why theatre activity in villages is infrequent. To fill the gaps and build a rapport with the rural audience, the Chandigarh Sangeet Natak Akademi, along with the Cultural Affairs Department of Chandigarh Administration, is organizing at Kaimbwala a two-day theatre festival (October 11 to 12) of plays that are socially relevant. The purpose, says Kamal Tewari, is to take theatre to villages, initiate an interaction between rural and urban actors, and in spite of a lack of a well-defined cultural policy, extend theatre activity and make it a movement. “The awareness levels about art is less in rural areas and the need of the hour is to communicate with them with themes that are contemporary and relevant,’’ Tewari hopes this effort will set the stage for more action and in the process, they can also encourage theatre artists from villages to come to the city with their productions. A folk theatre festival involving several places is also being thought of, as is extending this pursuit to other villages in the UT. “Tremendous work and effort in this area has been done by Gursharan Singh and one of his plays is also being staged at the festival,’’ adds Kamal.Anita Shabdeesh of Suchetak Rangmanch is a theatre director who takes numerous plays to the interiors of Punjab and feels this is an effort in the right direction. For this festival, Anita is directing Sirjana, written by Pali Bhupinder Singh and Nawan Janam by Gursharan Singh. “The former is on female foeticide, while Nawan Janam’s theme is suppression of the common man. Theatre is the best way to bring about change in a subtle and effective manner and if villagers can’t come to the city to see theatre, we should reach out to them, especially the women,’’ feels Anita. Nods Dr Sahib Singh, who is taking two plays written and directed by him to the festival. Anhi Gali Da Mor is a production which talks about how drug addiction is affecting our youth, “it’s a problems that’s rampant in Punjab and we have done innumerable shows of this,’’ says Singh. In Zakhmi Khamba Di Parwaz, Sahib has Bhagat Singh, with his ideology, motivate a common man to fight the system and the play also takes up issues of unemployment, exploitation of Dalits at al. Play on.
