Credits: Gillow Repertory Theater
color thief (Colour Thief), a children’s play, celebrated friendship and showed how a visually impaired girl colored a monster and appreciated colours.
Gilo Repertory Theater presented the play, Rangchor, a strange story of a monster (The Color Thief, an unusual tale of a demon) at Prithvi Theater on 12th May.
The story is set in a fairytale-like place where a demon lived in a cave and hated colours. So one day he snatched the color from everything in the world.
Everyone was scared of the demon, but a blind girl helped him see the world in a new light.
She described the colors to the demon and said, “Jab hawa jungle se baat karti hai toh woh hota hai Hara rang; Jab paani dapadta hai toh woh hota hai Neela rang; Laal—Jaisey Bhoopu; aur Gulabi, gulab ki mehek jaisa” (Green color is like the wind talking to the forest, blue color is like the water gushing, red is like a siren and pink is like the fragrance of a rose).
The girl said to the demon, “The colors are very nice and make everyone very happy” which caused the demon to return the colors back to nature. The 50-minute drama spreads positivity through its refreshing storyline.
The play is a Hindi adaptation of a story book, color thief by Stephen Aitken and Sylvia Sikander and illustrations by Sandhya Prabhat. The book is published by Tulika Publishers. The adaptation is done by Preeti Aher and the lyrics of the three songs are penned by Brijesh.
Talking about the play, director Shaili Sathyu said, “Last year, the team adapted color thief in Marathi. The script was slightly different from the one shown on Prithvi, but it got a very good response. We added songs and made it longer. Through such plays, we want to spark curiosity in the minds of children and make them ask questions.