And the stage is set for the newest edition of German Spotlight in Bengaluru.
Over the past four years, this arts project has facilitated a lot more than just a cultural exchange between India and Germany. It’s a discourse between actors, directors and playwrights of two countries that aims at helping the audience “discover the fact that people around the world have more in common than we think”.
A collaboration between Sandbox Collective band Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, the 2018 edition of the initiative will showcase English translations of four German plays in the form of dramatized readings.
Debosmita Dam, who is spearheading the project alongside Nimi Ravindran, says, “German Spotlight is a cultural exchange of a different kind. The scripts chosen for the dramatized readings are written by contemporary German playwrights, who are quite excited about their work being presented to the Indian audience. Although there is no set theme for the readings, the stories – which are made accessible through an online bank at Goethe-Institut – are interesting and quite relatable.” In the past, some of the German Spotlight scripts had been staged as full-length theatre productions in the city.
Laced with interactive sessions before and after the act, dramatised readings have been quite popular among theatre lovers of all age groups in the city. “It’s a curious storytelling format that the audiences usually find to be more engaging than watching a play at an auditorium, as they can almost visualise the scenes and be part of the experience,” adds Debosmita, who is also directing one of the four acts, titled Norway Today.
The show is opening on June 30 with the reading of Peer Pleasures, directed by Karen D’Mello. Speaking about the experience, she says, “Rehearsed play readings give a lot of freedom to the actor as well as the director to explore varied modes of acting within the performance. It’s a flexible format – something like the experience between writing a short story and a novel. Cut to Peer Pleasures, although it’s a German script, the story holds universal relevance. The plot is set in 2006, when SMS was the preferred mode of communication. It was fun to work around the basic emojis of that time.” The cast of this play includes artistes Honey Raza, Nisha Abdulla, Pranay Pandey, Sneha Ram, Vishnu Narain and Sunayana Premchander.
The four plays…
Peer Pleasures – directed by Karen D’Mello
The play is about six university students struggling to find their way through their dreams, their longing for love and their insecurities in the quest for something permanent.
Nightblind – directed by Kanchan Bhattacharyya
It deals with issues of familial discord, friendship and abuse in a relationship from a young and urban viewpoint.
The Jazz Conductor – directed by Lekha Naidu
The play speaks of music and war and hope. It brings to life the romance and nostalgia of the Jazz age, love for theatre and the good-old family amid unspeakable horrors.
Norway Today – directed by Debosmita Dam
This story is essentially a conversation between two young people, who belong to a generation where most of their interactions happen through technology.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> City News> Bangalore News / by Reema Gowalla / TNN / June 29th, 2018