Lalit Gupta
JAMMU, Dec 2: The five-day Poorvottar Theatre Festival which provided an opportunity for theater aficionados of Jammu to have an experience of the modern day theater practices in the North-Eastern region of the country, concluded with the performance of Nongban Soura, a Manipuri play by Imphal Theatre, at the Abhinav Theatre, here today.
Written and directed by Loitongbam Paringanba, a young NSD graduate, today’s play, an experimental production aimed at deconstructing the master- servant relationship which since times immemorial manifests itself in umpteen social hierarchies.
The three episodes linking, in the end, the meta-narrative of play, starts with a tribal chief Nongbang and his servant Soura, who leaves after finding himself marginalized and with no space for his own life. In the second sequence, a servant Manihar, who over-worked by his masters; an officer and his wife, also leaves his employers. The third is a crestfallen spot boy, whose dream of enacting even a one-liner dialogue is not fulfilled.
While the three masters meet and start searching for their respective servants, the servants who had also come together manage to control their masters. In a reversal of roles, Soura becomes the master while Nongbam the servant. But soon realizing, that he had become as bad as his master, Soura sets on a journey to seek a life of co-existence and mutual respect despite differences.
Today’s production, a collage of traditional elements woven into design laced with modern techniques provided an experimental framework for the abstract subjects matter. Especially noteworthy were the rhythmic steps that informed the movements of all the actors, including the ‘chorus’. The dance steps selected from the repertoire of local martial arts and other performing traditions along with modern ones that informed the design of each scene along with soulful background singing bestowed a poetic feel and airy lightness to an otherwise an existentialist and universal issue.
Arvinder Singh Aman, Additional Secretary, J&K Cultural Academy, in his address thanked National School of Drama for organizing the festival in Jammu. He also thanked all participating theater groups from North-East, the officials of NSD, the technical team of Abhinav Theatre and senior broadcaster Vijay Atri, who conducted the proceeding for all five days, for making the festival a memorable and enriching event for Jammuites.
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