National theatre Festival

Kathmandu:

The weeklong National Theatre Festival organised by the Nepal Academy ended on June 30. The festival featured 17 plays by theatre groups from Kathmandu and outside the Capital.

This year’s festival was dedicated to Bijaya Bahadur Malla, an experimental playwright best known for his play Pathhar ko Katha.

The event was organised at a time when there is no one to head the academy and many believe it failed to make any remarkable impression that a national festival is expected to make. Scheduled in a hurry, there was lack of coordination and proper planning and participants have alleged not much attention was given to the festival’s publicity and people hardly knew the festival was on.

However, Harihar Sharma, director of the Academy’s Department of Drama says, “The tremendous positive effort these young theatre workers have shown is a sign of a brighter future for theatre.”

He added that any shortcomings experienced during this festival would ensure that the same are not repeated in the next one.

In comparison to previous years, the plays this year seemed weak and demonstrated a lack of rehearsal. One artist was seen involved in many productions. The plays were selected in the basis of script alone. I think it is better to have few plays but good ones rather than many

plays but poor in quality. Earlier the festival used to be competitive, ensuring the participants worked hard to be crowned the best actor, director. It also gave them an opportunity and a platform to establish themselves in the theatre scene. — Krishan Shah Yatri, participant, Jyotipunja Sign Theatre (Bisthapan)

We did not find any special arrangements made for the festival. Performance-wise also, majority of plays were experimental and difficult to understand. The participating teams were new. I think the festival should invite the best productions of the year from across the country so that it becomes a learning experience for all. — Rajan Upreti, participant, Renew Art Theatre, Sarlahi (Kumarji agya garnuhunchha)

As the festival is no longer a competitive one, we could not expect any awards or financial gains. The only thing we counted on was a full house. But this was not met. We spend a year producing a play, but when it goes unappreciated like this, we feel bad. — Pravin Puma, participant, Sumnima Theatre Academy, Khotang (Yalambar)

One of the things I noticed was the lack of training in the young artistes. They demonstrated this lack in basic things like text selection. They had nothing new to offer other than repetition of same conditional situations that are formulaic in any drama. In our eastern philosophy, there are navarasas, nine different emotions, but the characters in most plays either just laughed or were angry. This was a good time to conduc trainings or workshops for young enthusiastic theatre workers. — Yuvraj Ghimire, theatre artiste

The encouraging thing about the festival was it had many young theatre workers giving us hope of new ideas coming into theatre. Overall the event failed to give the audience the feel of a festival. The audience also did not appear cooperative in maintaining theatre culture. There were evident instances of inadequate effort and lack of management. To put up any

show, you need a supporting staff, but the participating team members themselves were seen running around managing various things. This could dishearten participants.

— Sanjana Shrestha,

theatre buff