The five-day All Goa Inter-School Tiatr Competition, organized by the Tiatr Academy of Goa (TAG), kicked off at Ravindra Bhavan, Margao on August 28, 2023.
In order to promote and inculcate a love for the Goan art — tiatr — among school children, the academy structured this contest for the first time this year. And, it received a good response from various institutions across Goa.
Five schools from North and South Goa participated in the children’s tiatr competition held at the school level.
The participating institutions included The Rosary High School, Bambolim; Fatima Convent School, Margao; Our Lady of Carmel High School, Curtorim; St Rock High School, Velim; and Our Lady of the Rosary High School, Dona Paula.
ABOUT THE TIATR
The first day witnessed the tiatr, Ugttem Mollob, staged by The Rosary High School, Cujira-Bambolim. This children’s tiatr, penned especially for the competition, was scripted and directed by Santosh Shetkar.
The tiatr is about a family, which includes Joaquim (Tanish Wadkar), his spouse Maria (Ruth Gonsalves) and their two children, John (Evison Felizardo) and Ria (Tejasvt Mhalsekar). This family also resides with Inas (Harsh Ghadi) and his wife, Filu (Geetiksha Shirodkar), and they both try to assist the family.
Joaquim is into construction work, and Maria is involved in social work. Both are so pre-occupied with their respective jobs that they hardly have time for their children.
John has big plans in life and desires to be an artist. Irrespective of whether John does well in his exams or not, Joaquim wants his son to be, either, a doctor or an engineer.
John is in Class X and goes for tuitions regularly. Inas assists him while going for tuition every day. But, before the examination and results are declared, Joaquim tries to seek his son’s admission in college, and that too, in the Science stream.
John’s teacher (Pratiksha Parsekar) knows her student’s abilities and helps John fulfill his dreams. Unexpectedly, he wins at a national-level art competition.
After the achievement, John’s mother is convinced about her son’s passion. But, what about John’s father? Who will make him understand John’s dreams?
BEHIND THE SCENES
This children’s tiatr, Ugttem Mollob, has a story related to children’s dreams and passions. Besides formal education in school, it also throws light upon sensitive issues about the girl child, her growing and maturing stages in life.
The comedy element was connected to the play. Harsh Ghadi (Inas) and Geetiksha Shirodkar (Filu) carried good humour pills under their sleeves. Unfortunately, the dose provided throughout the play was very little.
As parents to their children, Tanish and Ruth played convincing roles. As brother and sister, Evison and Ria supported each other. Yatee Maithi, who makes a cameo, is equally confident in her dialogues. Pratiksha Parsekar, as a teacher, is impressive.
As the rules laid down for the competition mentioned that the teaching faculty could also get involved in the play, besides the students, the teachers played their parts well.
Songs in the play were traced in different formats and were interactive in nature. However, some songs hardly seemed associated with children and could have been avoided.
Among the musicians, there was Nolvert Cota with his mates providing good music to all the singers on stage.
Anthony de Ambaji took care of the stage set designs, while the writer-director of the play, Santosh Shetkar, handled the lights. Background music was provided by Anivesh Sawant. Tulsidas Naik did the make-up for the children, while Kadisha D’Costa looked after the costumes.