Rangmanch festival concludes with ‘Mitti na hove matrayi’ by Dhaliwal

Tribune News service

Amritsar, July 5

The last day of the 18th Rangmanch Theatre Festival staged the play, ‘Mitti Na Hove Matrayi’, by Kewal Dhaliwal. The play was a Punjabi translation of German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht’s play, ‘The Caucasian Chalk Circle’. The Punjabi translation was done by Amitoz and the play was adapted for stage by Kewal Dhaliwal.

It presents the story of a young girl, Mehtaab, who finds a child abandoned by his parents during a war situation and decides to become his mother. She struggles to keep the child as she has to face social boycott, called by names as a single unwed mother, but she braves it all and raises him as her own. When the war is over, the biological mother of the child stakes her claim on him and that’s where the conflict begins. Ultimately, the child is given to his rightful mother, Mehtaab.

The play was presented in Punjabi folk musical form ‘Nakaal’ with song-dance routines to enhance important scenes. The play concluded the five-day theatre festival that was heavy on realistic dramas and experimental theatre with light and sound being used as stage props.