The International Theatre Festival of Kerala opened with an excellent trio of plays, from Brazil, U.K. and India -
SILVER EPIDEMIC, the play from Brazil, entangled body, gesture, and coins in thousands, juxtaposing ‘honourable men' against the disenfranchised, the outcasts, the people of 'Crackland' who repeatedly get attacked by the police. Actors painted their bodies with silver in order to mask their fate, to inhabit a ‘silver universe’. They performed a disturbing doom - eating, drinking and shitting silver, broadcasting themselves, and yet remaining invisible. Verônica Lo Turco Gentilin
TOLD BY THE WIND was exactly that; a quiet performance that blended literature, movement and silence, evoking a series of metaphors with its fragmented yet beautiful Haiku-styled phrases. A bird, a dew drop, a step; with Zen-like poise, Phillip Zarrilli and Jo Shapland held the stage with their masterly bodies, and the fragility of their ageing. Personally, I haven't watched 70+ performers perform a poetry of life with the texture of vulnerability, sincerity, and poise as Phillip and Jo did.
EIDGAH KE JINNAT, a play that we must all watch in India today. Abhishek Majumdar the brilliant and bold playwright brought to stage the humanity amidst the crisis in Kashmir. The several intersecting narratives the play presents must be understood and articulated if we are to stand with the people and their region, the voices and their freedoms. Some memorable performances, especially by Ashwath Bhatt and Ajeet Singh Palawat
