Stirring hearts and minds at the Old World Theatre fest

The Old World Theatre fest at the Habitat Centre in Delhi had a number of well-known plays and productions besides the new ones. Some of the best plays were Barfi by Suarabh Shukla, The Doll’s House directed by Pushan Kriplani, Genteleman’s Club aka Tape by Sheena Khalid, Agnes of God by Kaizad Kotwal and Ladies Sangeet by Poorva Naresh. All these plays have been recently seen and reviewed by many.

My favourites include TEES in English and Hindi. Directed by Jaya Sharma, TEES was an abstract play, about a poor family living on their land that hardly helps them sustenance livelihood. The most remarkable part of the play was the scenes where the family members could be seen eating. The actors have very dramatically and stylistically present the act with very mechanical gestures and movements. The three characters in the story commit suicide at the end. They could not be saved even as an outsider tries to help and rescue them.

Actors Ankit Pandey, Devika Rajpal, Rahul Tiwari and Ritu Ahuja enacted the play. All the actors were deep into the action.

Another play that was loved by all was KOOGU. It was a one-man show by Anish Victor. He wrote the play, directed it and acted too. The play was quite tedious and long drawn just like TEES. It was staged in the amphitheatre with Anish perambulating on stage with some vague gestures. He would occasionally fall down on the stage, get up and repeat his motions. He spoke about his life as an artist and as a man who lives in a contemporary society. He also spoke about aims and ambitions. Anish emerged as a mysterious character whose passions remain under cover. His life story was dull beyond words and added to the flat and robotic annunciation.

Another one-man show was White Rabbit Red Rabbit. Having read the play, as we sat in the auditorium, the thought of how the unrehearsed piece would be, kept playing on our minds. That Rajit Kapur, theatre actor from Mumbai, was performing in the play, gave us some relief from the anxiety. The organiser of this event came on stage and presented a sealed packet, comprising Naseem Soleimanpour’s script White Rabbit Red Rabbit, to Rajit. He breaks the seal and began reading the script. Rajit enacted the script with great aplomb.

The transformation of the white rabbit to a red rabbit is when the person loses all his middleclass bindings. The rabbit turning red represents the moment a person frees himself for the revolution. This play was performed at the Stein auditorium of the Habitat Centre. Unfortunately, very few brilliant plays were shown in this festival.