When it comes
to theatre in Goa, Goans are
spoilt for choice between choosing different languages. Theatre in every
language is flourishing and the audience is very encouraging to new plays and
actors. With an accepting audience, directors also get the confidence to do
something different every time they think of getting back on stage.
Isabel Santa Rita
Vas’ The Mustard Seed Art Company is synonymous with English theatre in Goa.
The amateur theatre group has completed three decades in Goa and has been
staging two plays every year. In February 2018, they performed two shows of
their latest play, ‘When the day was Young’.
Isabel Santa Rita Vas
as a director has always brought new and thought provoking plays to the stage
for the Goan audience. “I feel that people are slowly opening up to new
experiments. We have had poems dramatised into plays and even four roles taken
up by one person. In ‘Art for Art Sake’, the set is an art gallery where one
woman becomes the organiser, helper, principal and artist with costume changes
on stage,” says Isabel.
Though the posters of
the plays don’t give out many details, their niche audience is open to new
ideas. “We add words like new or intriguing but the audience comes without
fail. There is an increase in the number of audience over the years and people
know our work and don’t want to miss it,” she adds.
Tomazinho Cardozo is
a known face in the world of Konkani dramas and tiatrs. “The only place where
experimental theatre can work is at the Kala Academy competitions whether the
audience likes it or not doesn’t matter. Konkani dramas and Marathi Nataks do a
lot of experimentation. As far as Konkani tiatrs are concerned, there is very
less of experiments on stage. People who enjoy popular or commercial tiatrs
don’t like it. Those who understand it will congratulate the director and those
who don’t appreciate it, give their feedback too,” says Tomazinho.
Rajdeep Naik is a
popular stage and film actor who works towards taking art to the villages. As
the chairman of Kala Chetna–Volvoi, he was recently part of the 9th edition of
Natya-Film Mohatsav held at Savoi Verem. ‘And a Poisoned Apple For Me Please’,
a Marathi drama staged by Mangalmurti Kala Bahar, Bironda, Sattari won the
first prize at the Marathi Drama Competition ‘A’ Group organized by Kala
Academy. It was staged at the festival in Savoi Verem.
“At
first, I was not too confident about the audience as we had been taking comedy
plays for the festival and this was an award winning serious play. They were
over a thousand people in the audience and around 200 people stayed back for
the open discussion with the director and actors. The play was thought
provoking and you had to derive your own meaning. People are open to any ideas
and through social media everyone is more aware of what is happening. Our
audience is very intelligent,” concludes Rajdeep.
