A father is said to be the backbone of a family. Ironically, when his backbone weakens, he is left to fend for himself.
This is what was shown in the play Dinante (at the last part of the day), staged on the concluding evening of the 19th Kalinga Natya Mahotsav, a four-day national multilingual theatre festival held at the Rabindra Mandap here by Satabdi Ra Kalakar, a premier theatre institute of the State on Monday.
Ramakanta has four sons and a daughter. He does not leave any stone unturned in bringing up his children. But in his old time when he looks for support, everyone turns their back towards him.
Navin Parida was excellent in playing the role of Ramakanta.
The stage with a blackish set design and gloomy light throughout the play was well in tune with the storyline. The play was staged by Rangaloka, a Bhubaneswar-based theatre institute. Durjyadhana Sahoo was the director.
This edition of the Kalinga Natya Mahotsav witnessed four plays of noted writer Kamal lochan Mohanty. The inaugural play was Daka Bangala, staged by Divine, a theatre group from Jatni. The play was directed by Biplab Keshari Satapathy.
On the second day of the festival, a New Delhi-based group under the direction of Sukumar Tudu, an NSDian, staged Miss Mallick in Hindi. On the penultimate evening of the festival, Bengali play Manush was staged by Kolkata-based group Dum Dum Sabda Mugdha Natya Kendra under the direction of Rakesh Ghosh.
All the four plays, having relevance to the present social scenario, were witnessed by good numbers of theatre lovers.
This year, the Satabdi ra Kalakar gave away its Alekh Samman to noted actor and director Prasanna Mishra and Satabdi ra Kalakar Samman to Gopal Mahapatra, Prashanta Mahapatra and Monalisha Pattsani.