Giving flight to their dreams

KOCHI: For Jeevan, the orphanage where he grew up with his friend, is his world. A lover of fantasy stories and fiction novels, the protagonist feels lonely when his best friend moves with a family to the USA after adoption. A gatekeeper named Kunjunni befriends Jeevan and tells him the story of his life. He speaks about a treasure hidden deep within a mountain and his quest for the same. It is around this story that ‘Kunjunniyude Yathrapusthakam’ revolves. The play was recently staged by Rangaprabhath for the first time as part of the closing ceremony of the National Children’s Theatre Festival, which witnessed the participation of theatre troupes from different states. 

Based on the Kendrasahithya Akademi award-winning novel by S R Lal, the play saw the participation of around 25 children. Speaking more about the play, writer and director Asok Sasi says,  “Children have the capacity to dream without limits since their dreams and imaginations have no boundaries. The protagonist of the play, Jeevan, is a kid who lives in a world of dreams, according to one of his teachers, who finally encourages him to scribble them down in a book.”

The play revolves around the search for treasure by Kunjunni and pinpoints that greed for money and power is a real menace in society. Along with the importance of reading, the play also encourages children to harbour colourful dreams, rather than dissuading them from it. Adds the director, “A child’s mind is akin to a white paper. It is the books they read and the dreams they see which gives colour to the white paper. The right kind of literature can lead kids to come up with colourful dreams, which eventually lead into wonderful and even great ideas and concepts.”

The director says it was challenging to turn an award-winning 350-page novel to a one-hour and forty minutes long play. “While there could be loose plots in a novel, which could be read according to our convenience, there is no scope for loose plots in theatre which is a visual art,” he said. 
The week-long children’s theatre fest’s closing ceremony was inaugurated by M P Sampath recently.