The opening weekend at Rangmanch’s Indian Theatre Festival witnessed house full shows, engendering more excitement for this weekend. As you plan to watch the quality theatre, we bring you reports from two of the four plays staged at The Playhouse Theatre, Auckland.

Gulbaj, the Bengali treat: Bengal has been known for long for the best cinematic and theatre productions in the last couple of decades. Gulbaj is a story of a man who is obsessed with cricket, like every Indian, but suffers a lot because some of his bad habits and misfortune. The story shows the struggle an average or low earning family goes through, the emotional strains and the comic side of some situations.

The show last Sunday was house full with the audience clapping and jostling on every comedy scene.

“The story was nice, I loved the expressions of the actors. It was so real and convincing. Cricket has always been the centre of all the issues, stories and solutions in Calcutta, I could relate so many things from the play” mentions Ms Durga Ray who was overwhelmed with the show.

The Bengali play got an outstanding review from the audience and one and all present at the theatre enjoyed the show. One of the spectators present at the theatre mentioned “I wanted some of my other friends to come and see this play, unfortunately it will not be happening again since next week has been booked for Hindi, Gujrati and Marathi plays”.

Ver Na Vavetar: Theatre is such a platform that brings the best of the best from an artist with no room for mistakes and no second chances either. The Gujrati play at the Rangmanch Indian Theatre Festival was no such exception with rave reviews being in the air amongst its viewers. The Gujrati play ‘Ver Na Vavetar’ ‘Love at War’ garnered big round of applause every time the lights dimmed off and received a standing ovation from the audience when the curtains went down.

The story revolves around two lovers trying to cross the communal barrier to be together eternally stopped by the red necks of the society who do not want their inter caste marriage to happen. The plays brings the harsh reality of life with hard hitting dialogues, terrific script, apt direction and an array of audio and light effects.

The story shows the condition of a very rural part of India brought together by love and divided by caste issues. The play showed a very honest side of India, is light hearted at one point, musical in another and heart-breaking towards the end.

On the front row of the theatre witnessed few Kiwi audience who though could get a clue of the language being spoken on the stage but could interpret the story with a few doubts here and there. When asked one of them mentioned “It was delight to see the play, yes I could not understand the language but I could make out what is going in the story. Mind blowing performance, they deserved a standing ovation. For sure!”

People who missed the show last week have one more chance to see the brilliant work of the Director and actor Sailesh Prajapati as protagonist in the play along with Chirag Solanki, Rohan Jote, Leela Patel, Rupal Solanki in the lead. The play has already been declared a hit with its first show and is already sold out for the next. The only chance the audience has to see the Gujrati play once again is the show on 30th of this month, but the tickets for that too are selling off fast.