Mysore/Mysuru: Kalasuruchi, Mysuru,  will present two shows of the English Play Stifled (Untitled-1) on Aug.17 and 18 at 6.30 pm at two different venues in the city. This play is written by Annie Zaidi and directed by Nima Manjrekar. On Saturday (Aug.17), the play will be staged at Suruchi Rangamane in Kuvempunagar and on Sunday (Aug. 18) at Kalpakshetra in Vijayanagar 4th Stage.

About the play, writer, director and the team

Stifled (Untitled-1): Our thinking is greatly influenced by the ideas and interpretations of writers. Many a time the impact of writers is so great that they become people be feared, and they are therefore often put under surveillance and their artistic freedom curbed.

Annie Zaidi, the author of this play, says “…writers have been silenced… Yet, anyone who has read history, must be aware that these stories and fears are not new. Power does what it has always done and storytellers do what they must do”.

In the play, Vishwas, the writer is driven to constantly be wary of being monitored.  He and his wife, Dina, have very few gadgets in their home, not even a television, and this makes them even more suspect. Satyajit, a schoolmate of Vishwas, and now Communications Investigator in charge of “keeping an eye” on Vishwas, uses seemingly casual but typically persuasive methods to extract information from Vishwas and Dina.

Annie Zaidi writes in English and has worked in many genres. Her essays, poems and short stories have appeared in many anthologies. Her novel Prelude To A Riot, won the Tata Literature Live award in 2020. Untitled-1 won the Hindu Playwright Award in 2018.

Nima Manjrekar has a Ph.D in Wildlife Science, and is a theatre enthusiast who has acted in both Kannada and English plays with various theatre groups in Mysuru. She was also a part of  children’s theatre group founded by Rameswari Varma.  

Kalasuruchi, a cultural team in Mysuru, active since 1985, has been active in many genres of fine arts. While theatre has been its core focus, the team has also been active in performing and organising other art forms like classical music, light music, Harikathe, etc. 

For the last few years, the team has been producing one English play per year.