Chaarpai

2008-12-13T01:05:00.000-08:00

13th December,08

“chaarpai”
….. Alakhnandan
Nata Bundele, Bhopal

About the director ………………

Alakhnandan (b. 1948), an M. A. (Hindi literature) & a Post Graduate Diploma holder in Public Administration, is a theatre director and playwright. He started his career as an actor and after a thorough study of the folk and tradational threatre forms of north India, got into theatre direction. He has directed many plays including “Waiting for Godot”, “Mahanirvan”, “Magadh”, “Andhere Main”,
“Suparimo”, “Tamrapatra”, “Bhagwadajjukam”, and wrote and directed “Chanda Bedni”, “Raja Ka Swang”, “Ujbak Raja Teen Dakait Urf Swang Multinational”, “Swang Shankuntala” and number of children’s plays. He has worked with directors like B. V Karanth, Fritz Bennewitz and K. N. Panikkar. He was visiting director at the Theatre Department Punjab University for two years. He is a co-founder of Bharat Bhavan’s Rangmandal and was assistant director of Rangmandal in 1981 - 88.
He is the founder director of Urdu Theatre Trust, Banglore and formed the group Nata Bundele at Bhopal in 1987. Besides being a scriptwriter for films Alakhnandan is also a Hindi poet of repute.

Alakhnandan has received Senior Fellowship for research on the Bundelkhandi Swang from the Department of Culture, Government of India. Shikhar Samman for Theatre by M. P. Govt, Master Fida Hussain Narsi Samman, U. P.He has conducted many children’s theatre workshop for the National School of Drama and was Chief Coordinator of Theatre in Education Project in Navodaya Vidyalayas in U. P., M. P., Rajasthan, & Bihar. At present he is associated with Nata Bundele Theatre Group and in an activist. He is also associated with N. C. Z. C. C. Allahabad as member General Body & Finance Committee

About the play …………….

The story of Charpai revolves around a middle class family groaning under financial stress. There is no dialogue among three generations despite residing in the same house. The fragmentation of the social fabric, under the cramped closeness born of necessity and poverty hits hard & demolishes the myth of an ideal, happy joint family. The play explores the complexities of a lower middle class family comprising a retired man, his wife, their son and daughter-in-law and two adolescent grandchildren, a girl and a boy.

All grumble and whine, betraying the sense of failure from their inability to provide themselves with a decent living. The realistic space denotes the suffocation and hurt caused by relationships and their incapacity to escape.

Theatre for Theatre

Chaarpai