Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, June 22: Natrang in its Sunday Theatre Series presented a new play by children “Mission H2O” written and directed by Aarushi Thakur.
The play revolves around the most important environmental issue surfacing the present generation. Water as a natural resource has been the embodiment of every civilisation and it has given shape to the economy of various countries. Many wars have been fought over water and many human lives have been lost due to the scarcity of water. This concept was analysed and designed in a theatrical story telling form by the members of the weekend theatre children club.
The play starts with a classroom scene where a teacher is teaching about global warming. She realises that the children are not paying attention so in order to catch their attention she narrates a story. This also gives us a reflection of the education system which uses mundane orthodox ways of teaching. But she makes learning fun and easy for the children. The story revolves around a village where all the water sources have suddenly become dry. The people in the village become worried and seek for a reason. Some villagers blame a ghost or a supernatural power. But to their despair, it turns out to be an angle that has stopped the water to make the villagers realise its worth. She tells the children of the village that if they want water to return to their village, they need to be selfless, they need to think about others and the future generation before they think about themselves. She also asks the king to give up his fortune if he wishes that water should return to the village. He however, at first mocks the idea but later when his own daughter’s health catches up with the lack of water to drink, he finally decides to give up his fortune to save the village.
A simple yet important idea has been put forward by the children of the weekend club and the play brings awareness about basic issues relating the environment. This is the first performance by the club children and it has been a great experiment because the children were involved in the minute details of scriptwriting, music making, sets designing and the costumes.
Natrang has been encouraging children to develop their ideas about theatre and exploring their talents to their best capabilities. The actors who participated in the play were Gopi Sharma, Sanchita Dubey, Agam Kaur Chirag Anand, Chander Pratap Singh Bhau, Mihir Gujral, Manya Gujral, Sanyam Gupta and Shreya Gupta.
The lights were designed and executed by Varun Sharma whereas the sets were erected by Mahikshit Singh Langeh. Mohd. Yaseen coordinated the show and the presentations were done by Namit Dubey.
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