The Balcony – Jean Genet’s play by Pandies Theatre

Monday, 6 January 2014

6.30pm
For pandies’ Genet’s The Balcony forms a periodic return to adapting radical classics that never lose relevance and are probably as if not more relevant today. Hailed variously as avant garde, a pioneer of modern theatre, an inspiration and reference point for LGBT theatre and the French Brecht (though we feel that his place is as radical but different from Brecht), Genet is central to the canvas of activist performance. No research on contemporary drama and no contemporary practice is complete without reference to him. The Balcony remains the most engaging exploration into the relation between power and the market. Re-formulating the pillars of medieval authority – bishop, general and judge in Irma’s Balcony and intervening with the Chief of Police, the play seamlessly presents the nexus of power and its continuity as we move from the medieval to the modern state. Is any kind of radicalism, any change possible? The play posits the question in the face of the audience.

pandies’ production is mostly in English (about 10 percent consists of Hindustani) and uses the Genet scholar Bernard Brechtman’s second translation as its base text. The performance is about 100 minutes and is being directed by Sanjay Kumar.

VENUE :
Alliance Francaise de Delhi – M.L Bhartia Auditorium (near India Habitat Centre).
72, KK Birla Marg, Max Miller Road, Lodhi Estate, New Delhi-110003

THE SHOW IS FREE FOR ALL.

Please be seated 10 mins before.