Any art form will flourish only if it is loved by people,particularly children. We always say, “Children of today are leaders oftomorrow.” It is evident that our future lies in children. And tiatr cannot bean exception. The future of tiatr lies in children and hence there is an urgentneed to involve children in its activities. The ‘3rd Children’s Tiatr Festival’organised by Tiatr Academy of Goa was inaugurated on December 5, and is inprogress in Gomant Vidhya Niketan, Margao.
It is not important to win prizes alone. What is moreimportant is the act of participation in the festival. The participation helpschildren to get first-hand experience of the stage which results in gainingself-confidence. Self-confidence is the ultimate power of success in anyactivity of life. Thus those troupes and participating children who might notget any prizes should not be demoralised at all. The attempt in acting,successful or unsuccessful, must be considered as a stepping stone for thefuture.
One of the drawbacks that today’s children’s tiatr face inGoa is the non-availability of appropriate tiatr-scripts meant for children.When we produce a children’s tiatr we must take care to see that the theme ofthe tiatr selected must relate to the life of children. Whatever may be thesubject of the story, we must try to bring it to the level of participatingchildren. Then only it will become meaningful for children and they will be ina position to perform better.
As ‘Kantaram’ or songs are an integral part of the tiatr,there arises a need to have appropriate lyrics meant for children. The contentsof the song should match the intellectual ability of the child-singer. Onceagain we have very few ‘kantaram’ meant for the singing pleasure of our tiny singers.There must be concerted efforts to increase the number of children songs(kantaram) in Konkani so that children singers as well as the audience are madecomfortable while singing and listening to respectively.
The First Children’s Tiatr Competition was organised by TAGin 2010. Such a competition of tiatrs performed by children younger than 19years had taken place for the first time in the history of tiatr then. Thisaspect makes it more interesting as well as meaningful. TAG’s efforts will definitelybear fruit in time. What is needed today is a pro-children’s tiatr attitudeamong the mature tiatr artistes. They must be prepared to sacrifice a little oftheir time to train children to act and sing. Each dramatic troupe must resolveto produce and stage at least one children’s tiatr every year.
We should not forget that it is easy to direct adults whileit is very difficult to direct the children. It is encouraging to see that tenTiatr Troupes have participated in this 3rd Tiatr Competition. The directors and others who took up thechallenge to mould tender artistes into impressive characters need to be pattedat their backs. If we wish to strengthen the tiatr movement among children thenwe need more such directors and more such tiatr competitions. Let us not forgetthat the participation of children in tiatrs does make the future of tiatr notonly bright but vibrant.
