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Great Text Reading - Come read a play with us!

On the last Monday of every month people meet in Q's drawing room to read a play they may have heard of but not necessarily have read. Writer's come to see how the greats wrote, actors come to play multiple parts and theatre lovers come because it keeps them in touch with the art form. It is open all and everyone takes turns in playing characters from the play. Discussions ensue after over tea and biscuits.

In 2011, the theatre world lost some of its iconic playwrights. So over the next 3 months, beginning January, we will be reading some of the works of these legendary playwrights.

In the month of February, we read, Badal Sarkar's 'Beyond the land of Hattamala' - A play of two thieves in a land of no money. Kenappa and Becha jump into a river to escape being caught. They wash up on the shores of a land 'beyond', where buying and selling are alien concepts.

The reading recorded our best turnout ever. 38 inside Q's drawing room. The reading itself was 58 minutes but was thoroughly enjoyed by one and all. Suhaas Ahuja even gave a tune for the last song of the play. Truely a memorable evening!

In the month of March, we will be reading Václav Havel's 'The Memorandum' - "a provocative and witty assault on the madness of efficiency peculiar to total bureaucracy."
Václav Havel (5 October 1936 – 18 December 2011) was a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician.Havel was the ninth and last president of Czechoslovakia (1989–1992) and the first President of the Czech Republic (1993–2003). He wrote more than 20 plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally. Havel was voted 4th in Prospect magazine's 2005 global poll of the world's top 100 intellectuals. At the time of his death he was Chairman of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation. He was the founder of the VIZE 97 Foundation and the principal organizer of the Forum 2000 annual global conference.
 
Havel received many recognitions, including the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Gandhi Peace Prize, the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, the Order of Canada, the freedom medal of the Four Freedoms Award, and the Ambassador of Conscience Award.

The Memorandum, one of his best known plays was performed at the Theatre on Balustrade. In 1968, The Memorandum was also brought to The Public Theater in New York, which helped to establish Havel´s reputation in the United States. Billed as a look at "bureaucracy gone mad," the managing director of an organization discovers that all office communications are suddenly being written in "Ptydepe," a new and impossibly complicated language. He seeks to get a memo translated, taking him through a maddening riot of red tape. The play is said to be inspired by the absurdities of life in communist Eastern Europe. 
The Public Theatre continued to produce his plays in the following years. After 1968, Havel´s plays were banned from the theatre world in his own country, and he was unable to leave Czechoslovakia to see any foreign performances of his works

We will be reading it on the 26th of March at 7:30pm at 18 Anukool, Sq. Ldr. Harminder Singh Marg, 7 Bungalows. Next to Daljit Gym. All are welcome. If you need directions call Quasar on 26392688 or 9821087261.