GURUGRAM: For three days, from March 9 to 11, the second season of the
Delhi Theatre Festival promises to regale theatre lovers across the NCR.
Best of all, Gurugrammers don’t have to venture out of their city, with three plays being hosted by Orana Conventions, in Sector 64.
So, here’s what Gurugram audiences can expect. Pankaj Kapur goes solo for his one-act play ‘Dopehri’, which is drama at its most unconventional, and also at its most emotionally stirring. Naseeruddin, Heeba and
Ratna Pathak Shah, too, will be gracing Gurugram, to stage their powerful ‘Ismat Apa Ke Naam’, as will Paresh Rawal, in the thought-provoking ‘Kishan Vs Kanhaiya’.
Dopehri (March 9) is Delhi thespian and author Pankaj Kapur’s magnum opus. Based on a novella by Kapur, ‘Dopehri’ deals with the melancholia of old age in an empathetic and often humourous manner. It’s the story of Amma bi, a widow who lives alone in a Lucknow haveli. She is consumed by loneliness but still, somehow, finds the strength to embark on a journey of self-discovery. In its masterful delineation of character and emotion, ‘Dopehri’ is as humanistic a piece of theatre as you’ll ever see.
Ismat Apa Ke Naam (March 10) is a production from Motley, the Mumbai theatre troupe founded by (among others) Naseeruddin Shah, in the late 1970s. It is the theatre group’s debut tryst with an Indian language. The ‘Ismat’ in the title is, of course,
Ismat Khanam Chughtai (1911-1991), the firebrand writer whose work took no prisoners, and whose pursuit of the truth rubbed a fair few up the wrong way.
Kishan Vs Kanhaiya (March 11), meanwhile, is a play about a non-believer’s wrangle with god. Kishanlal Mehta loses his antiques business following an earthquake, but he cannot claim insurance because it was a natural disaster – an act of god. So, he decides to file a case against god (Krishna, the ‘Kanhaiya’ in the title). It’s a play that’s absorbing and funny, and also depressing and sad.
Tickets start from Rs 1,000, and can be purchased on www.bookmyshow.com. All the shows start at 7 pm.
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