Amrit Yuva Kalotsav 2023 — the Sangeet Natak Akademi’s ambitious project to showcase the best youth performers of contemporary Indian performing arts — had its Sikkim edition at the sprawling Manan Bhavan located in the Development Area in Gangtok. Held over the first three June evenings, the festival featured quite a few theatre productions, both traditional and contemporary.
Amar Singh Rathore, a puppet show by the Jaipur-based Govind Bhat, deviated from the medieval legend that indigenous forms like nautanki made their own. This kathputli performance, designed in the traditional string puppet style, was peppered with too many tales within a short time. That parochialism and heroic pride can survive the onslaught of the digital revolution by reinventing themselves was evident. The icing on the cake was the lilting music accompaniment that brought the house down. But Coochbehar Chhayanir’s mime show directed by Bappi Das was a disappointment. Apart from the hackneyed treatment of themes, it also floundered as an ensemble.
This reviewer missed the Nepali play, Hamro Sanskar Hamro Sanskriti, that Sikkim Ensemble Theatre presented in the inaugural evening. But he was compensated by Yakshashchakrey (picture), a Sanskrit-Hindi play loosely based on the matrix that led to Kalidasa’s Meghadutam. Presented by the Calcutta-based Chidakash Kalalay, this production, designed and directed by Sayak Mitra, dissected the relationship pattern of the ancient community known as yaksha before celebrating viraha in its complexity. Led by Mitra and supported by seasoned actors like Pinky Mondal and Akash Mallick, the production swung Sanskrit back to the performance arena without adhering to the classical text in toto. The play was also visually stunning. With top lights employed by the light designer, Soumen Chakraborty, Mitra utilised the height of the auditorium by bringing in hand-held canopies that looked like sailing cloudlets. Backed by a live orchestra, Mitra stole the show with a versatile performance as an actor and an instrumentalist.
