The pandemic 2020 and Cyber performing Directing Cyber theatre The pandemic and the lockdowns brought it on. Social distancing had to be preserved and going to theatre like in the ‘old times’ became an impossibility They gave Sanjay and the pandies a reputation of being masters of this genre. For somebody whose life has …
From the internationally acknowledged Offtrack to the extremely popular plays based on Manto’s short stories and the staging of Brecht, 2012 0nwards has been the most productive time for Sanjay and also got him recognition as a leading global pioneer of activist theatre. Offtrack (2102) Genet – Balcony (2013) Crooked Kala(a)m (2016) Ismat’s Love Stories (2016) Spectres of …
Brecht is a challenge that Sanjay thrives in. In the midst of surrounding decadence how do you decide what is good? His direction of the pandies’ theatre presentation of Brecht’s iconic script The Good Person of Schezwan (1940-43) was constructed deliberately as a move towards participatory theatre where the audience and the actors work together …
Saadat Hasan Manto: Pagaleyan Da Sardar (2018) The play was both scripted and directed by Sanjay Kumar as a tribute to that booming secular voice so needed in our polity, in our sub-continent today. The attempt was not at a biopic but to explore Manto’s politics through a powerful depiction of his nuanced creativity in …
The Spectres of Shakespeare (2017) Difficult to take on the bard and this production replayed the magic of three plays – Tempest, Midsummer Night’s Dream and Macbeth. How great was Shakespeare? Why does he continue to reign over Performance and Visual Arts? When we look around, not only theatre but cinema, his ‘ghosts’ live on …
Ismat’s Love Stories (2016) Two plays were developed from the basic efforts put in Crooked Kala(a)m, an interesting directorial endeavour. Scripted by Anuradha Marwah, Ismat’s Love Stories had two objectives: first to recast Ismat Chughtai as an instinctively feminist writer whose work is still relevant today. The second is to explore her relationship with Saadat …
Crooked Kala(a)m (2016) Three iconic writers: Premchand, Manto and Chughtai, worked upon by three pandies’ members: Anand Prakash, Sanjay Kumar and Anuradha Marwah. This play performed the contemporaneity of their work. Premchand’s espousal of the rights of the low caste farmer poses a question mark on the spate of farmer-suicides in contemporary times. Manto’s powerful voice …
Crooked Kala(a)m: Premchand, Saadat Hasan Manto and Ismat Chughtai (2016) Read More »
Genet – The Balcony (2013) This was Sanjay’s second time with this play. Genet’s The Balcony was first performed with Hansraj Dram Soc in 1991 and now after 22 years in 2013. The director’s periodic returns to adapting radical classics evidences that these classics never lose relevance and without any major adaptation are probably …
Offtrack (2012) Mammoth effort, the play was staged in New York as part of the PTW festival in 2012. Scripted and directed by Sanjay Kumar, it was based on series of workshop theatre exercises spread from 2008 to 2012 with platform children in the shelters and reformatories in Delhi and Rajasthan. A unique exercise in …
Seven, Readings (2015) Directed by Sanjay Kumar, the internationally acclaimed play Seven, was staged as part of a major gender sensitisation campaign by the American Centre and the American Embassy in may cities of India. The play consists stories of 7 courageous women from different continents penned by 7 acclaimed American playwrights. The play has …