BackJashnebachpan: Theatre that takes children seriously
The Jashnebachpan festival showcases children's voices and concerns
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Grips Theater in Berlin, Germany, began a global dialogue around children’s theatre in the 1960s. Its founder and artistic director, Volker Ludwig, started experimenting with ways to make subjects like parents’ divorce, stress at school and challenging gender roles accessible to young audiences. This continuing dialogue about theatre which engages critically with the everyday lives, concerns and perspectives of children is at the heart of nine out of 26 plays at this year’s Jashnebachpan festival, which is on at the National School of Drama (NSD) in the Capital till 14 November.
“How to take children seriously in theatre, and in education, is a challenge for grown-ups," says Abdul Latif Khatana, chief of NSD’s Theatre-in-Education Company (TiE), which organizes the annual festival. “Even on a physical level, grown-ups seem to view the world as a mid-shot whereas children have to look upwards to make sense of their surroundings," he says.
TiE, which has been grappling with the question of how to let children’s voices and concerns come through in theatre for 25 years, is highlighting formats like Grips and devised theatre at the 12th edition of the Jashnebachpan festival. The number of theatre groups taking part has gone up from 17 last year to at least 26 this year.
The festival aims to showcase works that do indeed take children seriously—both as performers and as viewers. “We even have a 30-minute solo by a child actor this year in Mahabhoj," says Khatana. Solo shows are shorn of distractions like an elaborate stage design and, of course, co-performers—they can be notoriously hard even for adult performers to pull off, forcing the actors to call upon all their skill to keep the audience engaged as they occupy the stage alone.
Enacted entirely by adults, Grips is one of the longest running experiments in taking children seriously in theatre. “It tries to meet the challenges of capturing the conditions, thought processes and scope of understanding of children without becoming childish or even childlike," says Khatana. The examples of Grips theatre in the festival line-up include Goshta Simple Pillachi by the Pune-based Maharashtra Culture Centre (7 November), about the journey of a young girl coming to terms with her plain looks and understanding the importance of “inner beauty"; Ji Aaya Sahab (4 November), on the subject of child labour, by the Chandigarh-based Alankar Theatre; and The Boy Who Stopped Smiling (9 November), by the Mumbai-based theatre group Working Title.
The Boy Who Stopped Smiling, written by Ramu Ramanathan, centres on a child who finds it hard to adjust with his peers, and the pressure he faces from parents and teachers to conform. “The play is about a child who is intelligent, but socially and emotionally, he has problems," says director Jaimini Pathak. “The boy has one obsession, chess, but that too is not the most popular choice of sport. His sister is the opposite—she’s outgoing and is often the life of the party," says Pathak. The play uses elements like song, dance and colloquial language to present a real-world problem children often face.
A play at the festival that is stretching the boundaries of what might be considered appropriate viewing for children is a Kannada adaptation of King Lear, Obbanobba Rajanidda (11 November). Performed by K.G. Krishnamurthy’s Kinnara Mela Tumari theatre group, it pares and recontextualizes Shakespeare’s classic to make it accessible to children.
Krishnamurthy says it’s an important subject to highlight to children, and definitely not beyond their understanding, that it’s not okay to abandon the elderly to a lonely life in, say, an old-age or retirement home. It’s a point he feels he can put across seriously, and in a way that children aged 8-14 can relate to.
“We’ve made the play simple, like a folk tale. There is the emotional content of King Lear that I feel children can relate to. Plus, everything in Lear is exaggerated—emotions of love, hate, revenge, everything is very loud in King Lear. We use exaggerated gestures and acting in a way that children enjoy," says Krishnamurthy.
The Jashnebachpan festival is on till 14 November at the National School of Drama, Bahawalpur House, 1, Bhagwandas Road, New Delhi (23389402). For the schedule and details, visit www.nsd.gov.in
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