An online audio drama festival is underway, organised by a Karunamoyee-based cultural organisation. Natun Dishari Art & Culture has brought together 33 artistes or theatre groups for the festival that will continue till August 23.

“Confined at home because of the lockdown and the pandemic, people are not in a good mental state. This will divert and entertain them,” said organiser Partha Pratim Seal.

The plays are being put up three days a week — every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday — on the Facebook page of Natun Dishari at 3.30pm. There will be special editions on Sundays when messages from noted elocutionists like Jagannath and Urmimala Basu will be played before the performances.

“The participants are recording their individual lines and sending the audio clips to a musician who is compiling the play according to the script and sending the completed recording to us,” said Sanjana Seal, another organiser.

The plays are about 20 minutes in duration. Some are based on works of literary giants like Rabindranath Tagore, Maxim Gorky and Leela Majumdar while others are by contemporary playwrights. The groups hail from across Bengal, Purulia to Paikpara, Bankura to Bolpur. Other than Natun Dishari, five are from Salt Lake — Salt Lake Dekhashona, Modhuram and Sabdakalpa, from FD Block, SLDS from EE Block, and Sruti Srayon from Purbachal.

The organisers are promising variety. “The plays chosen belong to diverse genres. While a group from Bankura presented a play in a regional dialect, and a Puranic tale is scheduled to be webcast on August 12, on July 12 we, as part of another group Sruti Srayan, will stage Louhabhuk, a fantasy set in outer space written by Nirup Mitra,” said Partha Pratim, who will perform under his own organisation’s name on August 15.

Most participants are happy with the innovation. “Staging plays will be impossible for at least another six months. But audio plays can always happen online,” said Monika Mukherjee, whose group Modhuram performed Swarger Rath on June 26. “Three of us recorded it over a conference call.”

However, 88-year-old playwright Nirup Mitra, who heads the group Sruti Sayan, still cannot get used to the remoteness of the exercise. “It is our misfortune that plays have to be staged like this. This lacks flavour. Our members are either performing without rehearsal or rehearsing over phone which is never the same. But this is making the best of a bad bargain,” sighed the Purbachal resident.