Science drama ‘Leher Badlav Ki’ heads for Thespo Festival in Prithvi

NAGPUR: Performing at Prithvi theatre had always been a dream for city actor, writer and director Atul Somkuwar. But he had never expected that a play directed by him for educating school kids would give him this opportunity. “Leher Badlav Ki, a play in the science genre, has been selected by theatre group Thespo for their annual festival. It is an honour as for the first time a play from Nagpur is participating in this extremely prestigious theatre event,” he says.
The 16th edition of Thespo festival will be held in Mumbai from December 15 to 21. The annual festival is held for theatre persons below the age of 25. “Our play was selected from 186 entries that Thespo considered from all over India, Sri Lanka and Canada,” says Somkuwar and adds that the play was picked up for its social message. “It is about power crisis and how ultimately each one of us has to take the blame for it.”
The entire cast comprises of schoolchildren. “My group of actors are the youngest to be performing in the festival,” he says about the students of New Apostolic English High School, where he is a drama teacher. “The science genre is a relatively new subject and it attempts to connect science with society. In this play we have taken a situation when there is power failure in five states at the same time and how it affects lives of people there. Crimes are committed and innumerable inconveniences are caused due to this glitch,” says Somkuwar explaining the storyline.
Taking this situation as its theme, the story written by Mrunalini Apte, a colleague of Somkuwar, highlights various issues related to energy conservation. “We use this play to inform about alternate ways of generating power, how energy can be conserved if people are conscious and aware about the methods of doing so and the need to do something in this direction now,” says Atul.
Using the character of a ‘madari’ and his sidekick as the narrator, the play speaks of the power of one finger which switches on and off the lights. “We won the first prize in the all India science drama competition held at Nehru Centre in Mumbai in 2013, for this play,” says the director who has won many state level awards for his acting skills.
The 22-year-old theatre actor began acting from the age of 16 and has been associated with Bahujan Rangbhoomi. He won the best actor award for his double role in the state award winning play ‘Ghayal Pakhara’ last year.
“This performance at Prithvi is special as it would be for the first time that I will be on stage in this iconic theatre,” he says though regrets going there as a director and not an actor. “I have stuck to a young cast as we want school going kids to pick up the habit of energy conservation,” he says about the nine characters in the play and adds that an actor has the potential to bring about necessary changes in the society by conveying the right message.
“This play is like an education tool which can spread the message far and wide,” he says about the 45-minute play which will be staged at Prithvi on December 20.