MANOJ BAJPAYEE TODAY RECOUNTED HIS DAY’S BEFORE HE BECAME FAMOUS AT INTERFACE WITH STUDENTS OF NATIONAL SCHOOL OF DRAMA DURING  19th EDITION OF BHARAT RANG MAHOTSAV

New Delhi, 8th February, 2017: Today during the 19th edition of National School of Drama’s International Drama Festival Bharat Rang Mahotsav 2017, 5 Plays were performed including Y Sadananda Singh’s non-verbal play Love Your Nature; Shyamal Chakraborty’sbengali play Shekal Chhenra Hater Khonje; D. Elumalai’s tamil play Draupadi Vasthirabaranam; Sunil Shanbag’s multi-lingual play (Hindi, English and Konkani) Loretta; and a multi-lingual foreign play, Deborah Merola’s (in English / Spanish) Anna in the Tropics from Nepal. All the plays were well appreciated by students, theatre aficionados, litterateurs and theatre lovers.

 

Today, famous Theatre and Film actor, Manoj Bajpayee met with students and theatre lovers at the NSD Lawns during Interface, under a new initiative by National School of Drama where famous personalities from the theatre and film meet and interact with the students. Giving the mantra for a successful career to theatre aspirants, he said, “I follow a discipline in my life. An aspirant’s morning should start with rehearsal and not complaint. However it is basically your upbringing that makes you a person and an actor different from others.”  Answering a query on the limits of theatre and cinema, he replied, “Censor board is so undemocratic in a democratic set up as ours. Films can be categorized according to the age group and the board must be associated with providing the certificate only. I believe that parents are primary and the best censor tool and if they fail; no censor board can work. I must say that censor board has lost its significance in recent times.”Opened up on his failed attempts to get admission into NSD, he said, “While I was working with the big names in theatre, my yearning for the admission into NSD was not getting low. I wanted to get adept in techniques and nuances of this medium that I think is best taught only at NSD.”

 

“People are doing fraud in the name of realism while characterization has to be stressed. Characterization should be the primary step for an actor before graduating towards the realism.” He was asked about his role model and he answered, “Role model keeps on changing. Acting is a diverse field and you cannot settle with just one. My role model varies as per the demand of time and acting.”

 

Today, during the Meet the Director – face to face at National School of Drama, renowned Bangladeshi theatre personality Ramendu Majumdar, the producer of Prothom Partho said, “In our Bangladeshi curriculum unfortunately we perceive Ramayana and Mahabharata as religious scriptures not epics, so the inspiration from Mahabharata was something new.” Baharul Islam, director of Hansini when asked about the editing of the original script of Anton Chekhov said, “We edited some characters from the original script of Chekhov because our adaption of the play was different but the editing did not interfere with the original humor of the play, and also we wanted our adaption to reach as many people as possible so we finalized on Hindi language.” Tripurari Sharma, Director of Shaayar Shutter…Down enlightened the audience on how did she came up with the name of the play she said “there is an inherent loneliness in every one of us and it is amplified when we get busy in our daily lives but the original side of a person is when he/she has free time and opens the shutter which was down all day.” Kumar A. Bharti, playwright of Blood and Beauty said “many people have a misconception that the folklore on Heera Haran on which the play is based on is from Himachal Pradesh but that’s not true it is originally from Jammu and Kashmir that’s why we chose Kashmiri costumes.”

 

Katha Workshop Series in Performance & Craft of 19th Bharat Rang Mahotsav today had its 4rd workshop on Ojapali. It was participated by its experts Mr. Darrang Hemeswar Nath, Mr. Nirmal Nath, Mr. Maninder Saikia, Mr. Tarun Deka, Mr. Manoj Deka and Mr. Jyoti Nath Deka. Ojapali is distinctive and among the oldest performing arts of Assam. Performed by men, Ojapali performance combines singing and dancing alongwith improvised dialogues and dramatization. The Oja, proficient in dancing and singing, leads the performance. 3 or 4 palis, supplement it with the rhythm of their khutitaals, the palm-sized cymbals, the performers wear long sleeved white robes and silver jewellery and nupur bells on their feet. Ojapali performers render ‘malanci geet’ and ‘jagar’, both styles sung in Sanskrit. Byah and Sukananni are the two major forms of Ojapali. Byah performers are the byah-gowa, the singers of Vyasa’s works, the great epics. The Sukananni performers, the maroi-gowa sing in praise of the snake goddess, Manasa Devi.

 

After 9 more theatre groups giving their consent, this year’s edition of Bharat Rang Mahotsav’s all Allied Programmes and 34 plays (after consent from the theatre groups) will be Webcasted Live. The Live Webcast is available on the link: http://19brm.nsd.gov.in/live-streaming/. Archives of all these plays and allied programmes which has already been webcasted is also available on the same link.

 

Under the aegis of Advitiya 2017 of 19th Bharat Rang Mahotsav, 19 teams have already performed from various Institutes and Colleges out of the 53 Institutes and Colleges which will perform during this 21 day Festival of Drama.