Shakespeares plays to be staged

CHENNAI: Prakriti Foundation has always been exploring identity through art, culture and heritage. Over the years, they have organised several festivals and events in Chennai, which have provided people with the opportunity to engage with eminent scholars, writers, dancers, theatre artists, filmmakers and musicians from India and abroad. Five centuries after his demise, William Shakespeare (1564-1616) continues to symbolise the fullest exploration of theatre to represent the gamut of human experience and capture its heights and depths. No playwright in history has been rendered into other languages as often, or been appreciated by an audience as widespread, as Shakespeare has been, particularly in the twentieth century.Prakriti Foundation's commitment to theatre brought them inevitably to Shakespeare's work, except that they were interested in exploring the Indian twist – how have Indian individuals and groups, actors and directors chosen to interpret Shakespeare? The result of this thought process was the Hamara Shakespeare Festival. This year’s annual Hamara Shakespeare Festival will be held from February 3 to 5. The Four Seasons of Shakespeare (English) by Vayu Naidu, UK  is a new work by him. It is inspired by William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Winter’s Tale and inventively combines contemporary lives from London and Chennai. It will be staged on February 3. Alfonsina (Tamil and English) by Indianostrum Theatre, Pondicherry is a play based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In Hamlet, arguably Shakespeare’s finest tragedy, by the end of the first act, the young hero begins to believe that he has been divinely ordained to kill the man married to his mother. If Hamlet is indeed motivated by a filial duty to avenge his father, then why does he not like Laertes, swiftly seek out his father’s murderer?  The play Alfonsina asks the same questions but by placing an artist at the centre of the tragedy. The play will be staged on February 4.The love life of Ophelia (English) by Theatre Nisha, Chennai will be staged on February 5.Hamlet and Ophelia express the endless diversity of their passion in a work which takes the form of an epistolary play in verse. Steven Berkoff's startlingly original drama plans the lovers' legend underneath the plane of Shakespeare's play. With a brawniness of words tempered with softness, Berkoff's play is injected through with images of courtly love, sexual desire and warnings of future tragedy. The chill of the finale absolutely offsets the earlier violent heat in what is a unique piece of work. For details, call 8754415362.