Nandi Natakotsavam: ‘Not all performances up to the mark’

Theatre lovers from the city underscored the need for conducting a thorough screening of plays and play-lets before allowing them as entries into the ‘Nandi Natakotsavam’, as they expressed dissatisfaction over certain performances that were part of the 18-day theatre festival that concluded here.

In all, 64 performances; eight verse plays, 17 social plays and 39 play-lets were performed at the state-of-the-art Dantu Kalakshetram auditorium, with the Andhra Pradesh State Film, Television and Theatre Development Corporation selecting Kakinada as one of the five destinations for conducting the annual theatre festival.

“Since it is the prestigious ‘Nandi’ festival, I expected all the performances to be top-notch, but got disappointed after seeing some productions of lower quality. It is surprising to note that the corporation has not conducted any scrutiny, but allowed all the applicants to perform their works,” observed S.K. Mohan Rao, a theatre lover and a retired bank employee, who had watched all the performances.

“The technical values such as music, settings and lighting are good in almost all the plays and play-lets. It is time for the theatre troupes to focus more on scripts and dialogues,” said Banda Subhasri, a literary critic.

‘Scripts lack research’

Some felt that the concepts in plays were not well researched upon before they were performed. “Some enthusiastic playwrights misinterpreted the Indian mythology to add the drama quotient in their social plays and play-lets. This practice should be curtailed and the writers should focus more on research,” said T. Viswanatha Rao, a retired professor in English from Andhra University. “The corporation should also focus on the last-minute cancellation of performances, due to which we are forced to kill our time till the next scheduled one,” he added.

Over 1,200 artistes and technicians, who took part in the festival, expressed happiness over the facilities available in the auditorium that owned by the century-old Young Men’s Happy Club theatre troupe. “We have requested the corporation to choose Kakinada as their venue for the next year’s ‘Nandi Natakotsavam’ and told them that we are ready to host the festival,” said Dantu Bhaskara Rao, president of the club.

When contacted, general manager of the corporation M.V.L.N. Sesha Sai said that efforts were on to put in a new scrutiny system in place for the next year’s theatre festival.