Hyderabad: Culture enthusiasts in the city were spoilt for choice last week thanks to the Twin City Theatre and Culture Festival and the World Theatre Day. While a group of city youngsters put the Twin City Festival together, there was one man who gave them that extra push that they needed — theatre artiste and activist Parnab Mukherjee.
Parnab, who has been coming to Hyderabad for years now, felt that a festival was needed to foster something new in the city.
“Hyderabad is such a multicultural city but this does not get reflected in art, especially in theatre. In the community, there is a sense of people going back to the same old tried and tested scripts. Nothing contemporary is being touched upon. There are so many writers and plays that are hardly seen.We need to rediscover our heroes,” says the artiste, who even in his performance of Tagore Now! asserted the need to look at Girish Karnad and Arthur Miller with a new perspective.
“The idea came up when I was talking to Sneha and Krishna (the coordinators of the festival). We felt that a fest should be started to trigger off the idea of bringing the cross section of art together. As far as curation is concerned, there was also a need to touch upon as many issues as possible, such as queer rights for instance, along with some quality,” he adds.
Parnab was in the city for the good part of last week giving Hyderabad enthusiasts a good dose of fresh theatre. Besides Tagore Now! as part of the Twin City Culture Festival, he also held free workshops. And for World Theatre Day celebrations at Our Sacred Space he staged This Room Is Not My Room. The World Theatre Day tribute on William Shakespeare’s 450th birth commemoration converged Shakespeare and Bob Dylan.
Parnab has experimented with Shakespeare, Kalidasa, Neruda, Manto, Samuel Beckett among others. But the trick is the contemporary narratives, production and staging.
Theatre, according to Parnab, if formulated right can be used as a tool for education, sensitisation and activism.
But does the activism go a long way when staged at smaller venues to a selective audience? A small way is a long way, for Parnab. “Of course, a street play has its advantages. But the motivation is to get the point across. If you stage a play on how the police had picked up nearly hundred local men after the bomb blasts in Mecca Masjid in Old City, then that would be effective activism,” he explains.
But not all theatre has to be serious “I am not saying take the fun out of theatre, but then don’t make it just about fun,” he says.
