Theatre of the Earth

NaN•52m•

When amateur theatre practitioner Kanbailal was thrown out of National School of Drama in 1968, he didn’t give up hope. Along with his actress/wife sabitri, he started an inward journey of meditation reflecting on the rich “body culture “of Manipur and the energies of the earth. Drawing on the relentless miseries of their own life and the socio-political traumas of the Manipur society, their plays evoke the resilient spirit of the human soul. Theatre of the earth tells the extraordinary journey the people made from poverty, rejection, controversy to subsequent honour; with the Indian theatre world heralding them as one of the country’s finest theatre icons. Lyrical, musical and sublime conjured by the new theatre movement, the film pays homage to the rituals of human suffering both on stage and in real life.