The Qadir Ali Baig Theatre Festival is back this year, and is being organized from 31st Oct to 7th Nov. The festival is conducted by the Qadir Ali Baig Theatre Foundation, which was established by Mohammed Ali Baig in memory of his father Qadir Ali Baig, a doyen of Hindustani theatre.
The foundation was established in an attempt to revive the Indian theatre scene. On board are danseuse Vani Ganapathy, actresses Rohini Hattangadi, Suhasini Maniratnam and Urmila Matondkar, lyricist Javed Akhtar and director M S Sathyu.
The foundation not only stages plays every month, but also imparts to young talent, basic training in all aspects of theatre. Begum Razia Qadir Ali Baig, wife of Qadir Ali, is the Chairperson of the foundation, Sathyu is the National Director, and Mohammad Ali is the President.
On 3rd Nov '08, as part of the festival, the play Nawab Sahib Qibla will be staged by Kabir Khan, Mehreen Rafi & the Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop. Written in 1941 by the late Rafi Peer, Nawab Sahib Qibla was the first of Urdu experimental plays in the Indian sub-continent, which used the style and vogue of Europe of the 1940s. Directed by Rafi Peer's son, Usman Peerzada, the play deals with a frivolous and decadent nawab and his humblest servant.
Nawab Sahib Qibla makes fun of the redundant feudal mindset that refused to acknowledge the cultural degradation setting both in the political and social fabric of society. It has its roots in the issues lurking from a deteriorating social order, and satirises the idiocy of the sinking nawabs that looked down at egalitarian norms that could prove to be
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