Cast and Credits:
Written and Directed by :Abhishek Majumdar.
Performed by :Kumud Mishra, Sandeep Shikhar,
Gopal Datt & Shubhrajyoti Barat.
Music and Sound Design: Abhijeet Tambe
Light Design: Anmol Vellani
Design: Payal Wadhwa & Abhishek Majumdar
Costume Design: Pallavi Krishna
The play Kaumudi blends the splendor and the travails of theatre (the Rangmanch) with India’s glorious epic story – the Mahabharata.
Using the moonlit, timeless night on which Krishna delivered knowledge to Arjuna as its central trope, Kaumudi explores the dynamics between an estranged father-son duo who play Eklavya’s ghost and Abhimanyu respectively, in a theatre in the late 1960’s in Allahabad. Over three days – the last three performances of a great actor who has nearly lost his sight – the play brings to light the ghosts of caste-based injustices, the passing over of knowledge from a father to a son, a thespian to an upstart, the banality and beauty of art, and how an efficient mode of production ultimately replaces a lesser efficient mode. The play is inspired by two texts: Anand’s Malayalam novel ‘Vyasam Vigneswaram’ and Jorge Luis Borges’ essay ‘Blindness’, and at its core, is about a rite of passage.
Previews in the press:
Reviews:
Past performances: 10th Rangashankara Theatre Festival 2014, International Theatre Festival of Kerala, 2015; Bareilly Theatre Festival 2015; Vinod Doshi Theatre Festival, Pune 2015; Prithvi Theatre Festival, Mumbai 2015; Muscat Theatre Festival, 2015, Jawahar Kala Kendra, Jaipur 2017.
