BySukant Deepak

September 2, 2020 (IANSlife) The 15th edition of Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards (META) and Festival 2020 concluded a three-week-long celebration of theatre, bringing together leading theatre personalities including the META jury, nominees and awardees, who connected online in a virtual award ceremony.

Unanimously recognised by the jury as a stellar example of modern experimental theatre, Delhi-based Black Box Okhla’s 'For the Record’, directed by Nikhil Mehta, won the Best Play and also bagged the highest number of awards at this year’s META with wins across six categories including Best Actor in a Lead Role (Female) for Kriti Pant , Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Female) for Dhwani Vij in this complex play about culture and identity. The play also bagged Best Ensemble and Best Original Script for Nikhil Mehta, Dhwani Vij, Kriti Pant, Krittika Bhattacharjee, Kshitij Mervin, Neel Sengupta, Niharika Lyra Dutt and Prashant Prakash. The Best Director award was jointly won by Nikhil Mehta ('For The Record') and Sahidul Haque ('The Old Man').

'The Old Man' (Assamese and Gibberish) from Orchid Theatre and 'Ghoom Nei' (Bengali) from Thakurpukur Ichheymoto bagged four awards each. 

A theatrical adaptation of a Hemingway’s classic, 'The Old Man', directed by Sahidul Haque, won Best Actor in a Lead Role (Male) for Niranjan Nath’s performance as ‘The Old Man’ in the play. Best Choreography was bagged by Sahidul Haque and Best Light Design jointly won by Tapan Kr Baruah ('The Old Man') and Soumen Chakraborty ('Ghoom Nei').

A working-class manifesto with quintessential Bengali satire, 'Ghoom Nei' (Bengali), directed by Saurav Palodhi, won Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Male) for Koushik Kar, Best Innovative Sound Design by Debdeep Mukherjee, Best Costume Design by Turna Das and Apratim Sarkar, and Best Light Design.

And finally, the winner from the South, Malayalam production 'Bhaskara Pattelarum Thommiyude Jeevithavum' from Backstage won for Best Stage Design by Suveeran.

This year, over 385 productions were received and viewed by the selection committee and 10 productions from different states of India were nominated across 13 award categories. Plays in multiple languages such as Hindi, English, Hindustani, Bengali, Marathi, Malayalam, Assamese (blended with gibberish) and a non-verbal play were part of META.

Speaking at the award ceremony, Anand Mahindra, Chairman, Mahindra Group said, “My congratulations to all the winners and to Barry John who we honoured with the META Lifetime Achievement Award a few days ago. I am proud that in spite of, or perhaps because of, all our current difficulties, tonight’s glittering Awards ceremony transcends the boundaries of an auditorium and becomes accessible to an audience of thousands, right in their homes.  My thanks to everyone who made this happen – the participating theatre groups, the jury members, and the organisers, Teamwork Arts.”

(This article is website exclusive and cannot be reproduced without the permission of IANSlife)

Sukant Deepak can be contacted at Sukant.d@ians.in