Sri Lankan play adds flavour to Assam forest-clearing theatre festival

Under the Sal Tree, an initiative to preserve the Rabha tribal drama form, has been organised since 2008

GUWAHATI

A play from Sri Lanka, reflecting the crisis the country is undergoing, added flavour to a tribal theatre form being celebrated annually since 2008 in a spherical sal forest clearing, in western Assam’s Goalpara district.

The three-day Under the Sal Tree festival is organised mid-December in the district’s Rampur village by Badungduppa, a theatre group of the Rabha ethnic community. It primarily showcases the traditional tribal open-air theatre that relies more on music and expressions, than lengthy dialogues.

Theatre groups from Bangladesh, Brazil, Poland and South Korea have performed in previous editions of the festival.

Anasuya Subhasinghe’s Salt Theatre Company (STC) is the first from an island-nation to participate in the open-air festival. The company based in Sri Lanka’s Angoda performed ‘My Sweet Rotten Heritance’ on Friday, the second day of the 13 th edition of the community-driven festival.

She said the festival had given her group a break from the crisis Sri Lanka had been facing since the COVID-19 pandemic. “I was drawn to this festival after getting photos of the open-air ambience online,” she said.

‘My Sweet Rotten Heritance’, the debut theatrical endeavour of STC, is based on the “extraordinary world” of Kolam, a dance-drama of rural Sri Lanka where the actors wear masks and costumes and perform with mime, dance and some dialogue.