Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival 2022 begins on November 1

The 19th edition of the festival will feature six plays themed on ‘just theatre’

The 19th edition of the Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival, which commences on November 1, is a resumption of sorts. For, the regular proceedings of the annual festival were hampered the last two years due to COVID-19. In 2020, for the first time ever, the festival was exclusively online. And, last year, it was partly online and partly physical with social distancing measures in place. This year, it is back in full flow.

When asked if normalcy has returned after the waves of the pandemic, Arundhati Nag, the artistic advisor at Ranga Shankara, says, “Everyone is pretending everything is fine. People were bursting firecrackers for Diwali as if that is good for our health.”

She reckons there is a shift in the area of art and entertainment as well, especially theatre. “It’s about the big shows, it’s about who makes the biggest noise... That’s what the sponsors are after too,” she says, “Thought-provoking shows have become very few. So, we decided our festival should be called ‘ just theatre’. We wanted to explore the different meanings of the word ‘just’. People were beginning to do plays that were within their comfort zone. We wanted to do stuff that is more instigating.”

The festival begins on Karnataka Rajyotsava with a Kannada poetry session,  Idhu Keluva Samaya (It’s Time to Listen) curated by poets Mamta Sagar and Prathibha Nandakumar. First in the festival line-up is a Kannada play titled  Dakla Katha Devi Kavya by Jangama Collective. Five other plays – two in Hindi, two in English, and one in Tamil – will be staged till Friday. 

Various college groups will also perform 20-minute plays at the Ranga Shankara foyer on all days of the festival. Apart from plays, a reading session with Ratna Pathak Shah (titled  Other Voices), on November 4 and 5, is also a part of the festival. 

The Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival will be held from November 1 to 6. Plays will begin at 7.30 pm; other events at 4 pm. Tickets are available on bookmyshow.com and at the box office.