Lalit Gupta
JAMMU, Mar 4: Organized by J&K Acadamy of Art, Culture and Languages, Annual Drama Festival 2014 opened with Dr Dharamvir Bharti’s famous play ‘Andha Yug’, at Government College for Women auditorium, here today.
Staged by Samooh Theatre and directed by Ravinder Sharma, the Hindi play Andha Yug-The Blind Age, written in verse, captures tragic events that take place on last day of the 18-day war between Kauravas and Pandavas who want to regain the throne. On the surface, it is fought to establish the reign of truth, upholding human values, justice and righteousness but the war culminates in decadence of human values and in blurring boundaries between falsehood and truth. Both the victor and the vanquished wander in a dark abyss, engaged in self-exploration.
To perform a play that has been staged across continents, regions and languages, and a dream project for any theatre director, certainly reflects the confidence of Samooh Theatre to accept the challenge. The young director Ravinder Sharma has taken certain liberties with original format and designed the play with emphasis on songs and musical interludes in place of portions that are originally spoken by actors. But nonetheless, today’s production, though little slack in the beginning, picked up tempo as the play developed and left succeeded in leaving an overall impact on the audience.
One of the highlights of play was emphasis upon aesthetics of the groupings, choreographed movements of chorus as well as actors in scenes that unfolded one after the other on an almost bare stage. The symbolic representation of Krishna as an image of ‘More Pankh’ on a LED screen, hung high in middle of the stage, accentuated the dramatic omniscience of the all pervading divine will.
Keeping in view the historical backdrop of characters, suitably designed costumes, background music and songs, light design, all added to communicate the message underlying the play which is considered as anti-war modern Indian classic.
Young actors who gave notable performances included Kanika Sharma as Gandhari, Vishal Singh as Ashwathama, Pankaj Anand as Sanjay, Goutam Sahrma as Yuyutsu, Abhishekh Bhat as Kripacharya, Rajat Gupta as Kritverma, Ravinder Sharma as Dhritrashtra, Kartik Singh Saini as Vidur, Avinash Lakhotra as Vridh Vachak, Rohit Chib as Prahari-I, Ajay Tamang as Prahari II. The actors in the Chorus were Aditi Aryan, Updesh Kaur, Sandeep Thakur, Sandeep Manhas, Aditya Pandita, Gautam Kumar, Samdhish and Shubham Singh Nag.
The music was designed by Surinder Manhas, Choreography by Rohit Bains, lights by Neha Singh, make-up by Shammi Dhamir, costumes by Ravinder Sahrma and set by Kartik Singh Saini.
The annual drama festival was inaugurated by Shantmanu, IAS, Divisional Commissioner, Jammu. Prominent among the audience were Balwant Thakur, Deepak Kumar, Haroon Rashid, Secretary J&K Cultural Academy, Additional Secretary Arvinder Singh Amn and Dr Sudhir Mahajan.
Tomorrow Punjabi play, Sahid Nadeem’s Dukh Darya will be staged by Balraj Sahni Punjabi Rangmanch.
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