21st National Theatre Festival ends with Swarajbir’s Adakar

Amritsar, July 8

The 21st National Theatre Festival by Manch-Rangmanch in collaboration with Virsa Vihar culminated with a successful and poignant presentation of Dr Swarajbir’s gem “Adakar Adi Anth Ki Sakhi”. Directed by eminent theatre person Kewal Dhaliwal, the play is based on the dilemma an actor might face and his commitment to play multiple characters on stage.

Narrated through a story of an actor, it shares with the audience how he lived the characters he played in his life, how those characters affected his personal life, his commitment and how plays provide a direction to the society. The play was a commentary on theatre as a mass medium, and actors as reflection of society.

Through the week, the festival staged the play ‘’Andha Yug’’ written by famous writer Dharamvir Bharti and directed by Kewal Dhaliwal. An adaptation of Mahabharata, an ancient Sanskrit epic composed by Veda Vyasa. The play begins on the eighteenth and final day of the great Mahabharata war, which destroyed the kingdom of the Kauravas, their beautiful capital city of Hastinapur, the Kurukshetra battlefield in ruins strewn with corpses. The whole sky was filled with death wails, as the cousins killed each other. The survivors were left hurt and angry as they continued to blame others for the destruction, even divine will, yet none were willing to see it as a consequence of their own moral choices. Ashwatthama, son of guru Dronacharya, in a last-ditch bid for revenge against the Pandavas, releases the ultimate weapon of destruction, the Brahmastra, which promises to destroy the world, yet no one comes forward to condemn it, morals and humanity was the first casualty of war. Krishna, who mediates between the cousins before the war, remains the moral centre of the play. Even in his failure he offers options that are both moral and just and reminds that the higher or holy path is always accessible to men even in bad times.

Another popular adaptation of famous literature was the play Saudagar based on William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.