The week-long annual theatre extravaganza, which begins in Guwahati from September 9, will showcase plays on Swami Vivekananda and on flood problems of Majuli.

The highlight of the Brajanath Sarma Memorial Drama Festival, organised by Samahar Natya Goshtee, will be the staging of the play ‘Biplobee Vivekananda’.

The play will portray the ideology and humanist philosophy of Swami Vivekananda, Samahar’s General Secretary and Director of the play, Sitanath Lahkar said.

Lahkar, an eminent playwright and director with nearly 500 productions to his credit, said the play is an attempt to dispel the misconceptions promoted by certain people about Vivekananda.

Lahkar has also directed the inaugural play of the festival ‘Junj’ on the plight of the people of the world’s largest river island Majuli due to severe flood and erosion.

The play also highlights the deep-rooted corruption involved in the government initiated flood control measures.

Another highlight of the festival will be the staging of the play ‘Eklavya Uvaach’, a satire on the Mahabharata, by New Delhi-based Jumbish Arts.

The other productions include Nalbari based group Sunag’s “NOKIYAMPO”, directed by Mukul Idipas, which narrates the superstitious beliefs and practices in an interior tribal village of Arunachal Pradesh that severely assaults the dignity of women.

Jagiroad Natya Gosthee will stage “Hanan”, a play on animal sacrifice, which explores the emotional bonding of a buffalo with its owner along with divide between the rich and the poor.

The play is replete with folk elements with the director Tarun Talukdar incorporating dhulia traditions and Bihu to bring to the fore the rituals of animals in temples and the need to stop this.

Nagaon’s Abinaswar will stage a historical play “Phulaguris Dhawa”, based on the farmers’ uprising against the British in 1861 against imposition of a new tax.

Another theatre group from Nagaon –Natyam will present “Ghinaai Haatola” which explores the generation gap consequent conflict between the protagonist and his family members.

The annual theatre festival was organised in the memory of Assam’s mobile theatre pioneer Brajanath Sarma who first brought women on the stage and introduced co-acting in Assam in 1933.

Sarma, also a firebrand freedom fighter, had destroyed and set ablaze the British aerodrome at Bornagar in Barpeta district.