Kathmandu:

Twenty-five years may not be a long time in the history of a country but for individuals, it is a lifetime. And to survive as a theatre group, it is commendable. To celebrate this pride, the Sarwanam theatre group organised a programme at Russian Cultural Centre on March 31.

In this special year, Sarwanam’s mission is to build a theatre hall of its own at Putalisadak that will be a platform for all theatre artistes of the country, to bring out more theatrical productions — at least a new production every two months in Kathmandu and outside the Valley, and to deal with the matters that the country is suffering from.

As a token of gratitude, Sarwanam awarded its Sarwanam Puraskar to Sunil Mishra for his major role in the management during the time of Sarwanam’s inception and for Mishra’s contribution in producing plays in both Maithili and Nepali languages.

Mishra gave the audience a glimpse into his talent by performing pieces of his jogira and nautanki style from his various plays at the function.

Senior artist and chief guest, Uttam Nepali, expressed his admiration for Sarwanam for making the most of the open space given by nature as a stage for its presentations and battle the lack of resources with its creative and imaginative talent.

The programme concluded with the staging of their latest production, Pratibandit Patraharu, written and directed by Ashesh Malla that reminded the audience of Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello’s experimental play, Six Characters in Search of an Author in its form.

Five characters, desperate to come into being, appear on stage and request the playwright to bring them out from his mental workshop.

The characters that appear are a mother, a child, and youths reflecting the dispirited, depressed and fearful selves of the people of the present time. They bring with them a story that examines the situation common people are going through at this time of restriction. The play ends with the realisation of the playwright that he must let the characters come out from his mind.

The audience, although at times looked puzzled by the complex form of the play, were responsive to the ideas dealt in the play and the brilliance of the attack on the contemporary situation.