"Cinema cannot substitute Theatre"

The present resurgence of the theatre movement proves that theatre cannot be substituted by either cinema or television serials, Kerala Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan said while inaugurating the fifth National Theatre Festival (organized by the Information and Public Relations Department of Kerala) on Monday in Thiruvananthapuram.

"It is a common belief in the age of cinema and serials that theatre is dead. However, the reality is that cinema stars are taking a break from cinema to work in theatre. The sharp fall in the number of plays presented on stage is mainly due to the fact that people"s leisure time has been captured by TV channels. Theatre should be converted into the most powerful medium of creativity and its democratic nature should be regained," he added. The Chief Minister has also felicitated veteran theatre personalities S. Ramanujan and M.K. Kamalam on the occasion.

The festival, being held at Tagore Theatre and Vyloppilly Samskruthi Bhavan till March 12, will feature the plays of famous directors Jyothish M.G. (Malayalam), Kirti Jain (Hindi), Shanmugaraja (Tamil), Zuilekha Choudhary (English), Pabitra Rabha (Garo), Maya Krishna Rao (Multilingual), Sankar Venkateswaran (Malayalam-Japanese), Santanu Bose (Bengali), Anuradha Kapur (Hindi) and Veenapani Chawla (Malayalam-English). It focuses on the theme "Modern and Contemporary Theatre".

The plays to be staged include Macbeth (Malayalam), Zuilekha Choudary"s On Seeing (English), Santanu Bose"s Antigone (Bengali), Habib Tanvir"s Charandas Chor (Chhattisgarhi), Maya Krishna Rao"s Heads are meant for walking into (multi-lingual), and Sinker Venkateswaran"s Sahyande Makan-The Elephant Project (Malayalam/ Japanese).