Theatre festival of Kerala in Thrissur

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The fourth edition of the International Theatre Festival of Kerala (ITFoK) organised by the Kerala Sangeeta Nataka Akademi will begin in Thrissur on February 1. ‘Festival reach-out’ programmes will be held in the city and in Kozhikode as part of the festival, said office-bearers of the Akademi. The festival will give the public an opportunity to know the new trends in the international theatre, the organisers said. The highlight of the festival will be ‘Meet the masters’, a special segment which will see the staging of plays by masters like Homer, Kalidasa, Shakespeare, Tagore, Ibson and Richard Schechner. The event will have participation of renowned troupes from Polland, Lithuania, Italy, the UK, Israel, Catalonia.  Artistes form Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Bengal, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Kerala will also participate. ‘Carmen Funebre’ by Teatr Biuro Podrozy, a renowned troupe from Posnan in Poland, is based on the Bosnian war. Thetre Potlach will stage ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea’ penned by Jules Verne. Leo Tolstoy’s ‘Kreutzer Sonata’ will be presented by Lithuanian director Saulius Vernas.  ‘Golden Dragon’ by Actors Touring Company of England, ‘Imagining’ of Kent University and ‘Humortel’, a street performance from Catalonia, will also be staged at the eight-day event. Kalidasa’s ‘Malavikagnimitram’ directed by Kavalam Narayana Panicker, Auto Shogo’s ‘Water Station’ directed by Sankar Venkiteswaran, Ibson’s ‘Peer Gynt’ directed by Deepan Sivaraman and ‘Kuch Biho Sakthahe’ by Anupam Kher will also be staged.Out-reach programmeThe festival out-reach programme in the city will see the staging of six plays. ‘After Life of Birds’ by Abhishek Majumdar, ‘Peer Gynt’ of Deepan Sivaraman, ‘Manganiar Folk Music Concert’ by Kuldeep Kothari, ‘The Interview’ by Akarsh Khurana, ‘Molagapodi’ by Srijith Sundaram and ‘Chandalika’ by Usha Ganguli will be staged here.