Kathmandu:

The curtains were drawn on the Kathmandu International Theatre Festival 2008 on November 27 with the staging of Sunil Pokharel’s Karnali Dakkhin Bagdo Chha.

Renowned artist Kiran Manandhar said that he feels that Gurukul is like his own studio and was seen throughout the festival busy working on some piece of painting. He gifted some of his work to some special people at the closing ceremony.

Cultural expert Satya Mohan Joshi also lauded Gurukul as “the place that has brought about a new movement in theatre and shown the change that theatre can bring in society”.

This theatre festival saw plays that were totally different and some that shared similarities being performed on one stage. One of the most powerful plays with amazing actors giving engaging performances was Nati Binodini. And it were plays like And the Dead Tree Gives No Shelter and Miss Julie which were quite different as they didn’t have the usual elements that theatre lovers in this region are used to. They were without much music or props or too loud facial expressions but very forthright. Miss Julie had a certain stylised element to it lending the play a very modern feel. Certain notions that we have of theatre were busted by the stageing of such plays.

Plays like Bhelua Sundari, Fulomati, and Wesandon, the Lost Track to Nirvana, were quite similar to theatre in Nepal with a lot of dramatised poses, prominent facial expressions, tragedy forming an integral part of it and of course humour incorporated within it. And of course traditional music in the background.

Then there were performances like Hanglai and Johan Sara in Pictures which preserved age old traditions in their countries and brought forth the fact that it is one’s own culture that makes one special and unique and yet have the ability to touch people all over the world.

Staged from November 11-27, the theatre festival saw troupes from different countries around the world. And organiser Sunil Pokharel said, “There certainly is

more professionalism, the groups put in more effort and hard work, and they also worked quite a lot on the concept. But technically some were better while some seem to be in the same level as ours.”