“The First Leaf”, a special play for children in English, will be staged at Ranga Shankara from 26-28 August 2008 at 7.30 pm.

“The First Leaf” is a production of AHA! Ranga Shankara’s Theatre for Children initiative. Padmavati Rao, who has previously served as Assistant Director on Shankar Nag’s popular TV serial, Malgudi Days, directs the play. The translation into English from the original by Shrirang Godbole is by the director. Padmavati has also co-directed AHA!’s other production “Gumma Banda Gumma” in Kannada.

Music for “The First Leaf” is by Bhavataarini, daughter of the famous composer, Ilayaraja.

This play opened in December last year to an appreciative audience of children and adults. Till date, over 6200 children have enjoyed the play through the Deccan Herald’s Newspaper in Education programme.

“The First Leaf” tells the inspiring story of Putti, her brother Dodu and friend Chinna who live in a time of imminent environmental catastrophe, which is as real as today and looms as close as tomorrow. The three young students explore their surroundings through fantasy and fun with the new tenant in their residential complex, who breathes new meaning into all he touches and encounters. The lesson ultimately learnt is one of protecting Plant Earth.

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I have seen “The Suit”, and “1,Madhav Baug”…and recommend them to theatregoers!

(Tickets for all plays except 1, Madhav Bagh are available at Ranga Shankara
and www.bookmyshow.com. For 1, Madhav Bagh, tickets will be sold 20 mins
before each show (25 tickets per show)

Hi,

The details of four special plays to be staged at Ranga Shankara from Aug
14th to 17th are enclosed.

*The Suit and Nagamandala, directed by Neelam Mansingh*

Contemporary Indian theatre has a few proud ambassadors. Neelam Mansingh
Chowdhary is counted among the top of them. Born and raised in the UK,
Neelam studied in National School of Drama, New Delhi and has been running a
theatre company of her own called “The Company” from Chandigarh.

Apart from being invited to all the major festivals in India, Neelam is in
the forefront of Indian theatre artistes whose work is invited abroad to
much praise and awe. She is a regular on the international theatre festival
circuit and even in countries like Japan where acceptance and
appreciation are difficult and rare.

Her plays have won praise for combining western classical writing with a
performance style grounded in Punjabi aesthetics by incorporating music,
ritualistic elements and images that endeavour to communicate as strongly as
words. Her *Nagamandala *is considered to be one of Girish Karnad’s
masterpieces and Neelam Mansingh’s *Nagamandala *is regarded as the best
production of the play.

*The Whale, by Concrete Temple Theater, New York*

Adapted by Renee Philippi and Carlo Adinolfi and directed by Renee Philippi,
*The Whale *tells the tale of Captain Ahab and his maniacal pursuit of the
ever-elusive White Whale.

* **1, Madhav Baug — presented under Ranga Shankara’s “Other Voices”***

Chetan Datar’s “1 Madhav Baug” is an intimate rendition of a mother about
her son, performed by Revathi Menon. The acclaimed actor-director from
Chennai made her debut in theatre with this piece and has travelled with it
to the Jaipur Literary Festival and Hyderabad as well. “1 Madhav Baug” is
directed by Mariam Jetpurwala. The translation is by Shanta Gokhale.

India Foundation for the Arts today presented “Antaryatra” (”The Journey Within the Self”), directed and performed by Usha Ganguli, at Ranga Shankara.

The play was a self-referential one; Usha has led the theatre group, “Rangakarmee”, for about 25 years now. She spoke of her experiences as an actress (sorry, actor is the pc word to use, but here, the word has a specific gender meaning!)…and of her journey from the very first nervous day at the theatre, through the various roles she has enacted, as well as the many women she had come into contact with…all of which has shaped her life. As she said, “If I had learnt it in a school, I would not have learnt so much, or been moulded so much…”

Usha slipped in and out of the sutradhar’s part, and in and out of the characters of either the women in the plays, or the women in her life, effortlessly. Her mobile face expressed every emotion beautifully; that mobility allowed me to gloss over the couple of occasions when she fluffed her lines (and surely it must be a very difficult task to sustain a monologue for 75 minutes non-stop!).

The dramatization opened with memories of Kolkata…and being a Kolkata-childhood person myself, I empathized perfectly. Her training in classical dance informed her movements on stage, and they were fluid and graceful, and it was a delight to watch her for this reason alone, if not for her emoting!

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India Foundation for the Arts

presents

ANTARYATRA

Directed and Performed by Usha Ganguli

Produced by Rangakarmee

Supported by Sobha Developers

July 30th, Ranga Shankara 7:30 pm

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I went today to watch “The Final Rehearsal” by ACTor Productions, Bangalore , and came away very impressed with a theatre group that seems to have got its…er…act together, with a very talented team, led by Pawan Kumar.

The play is all about competition, winning and losing….acceptance and rejection. An actor describes his experiences, working his way up the ladder (from playing a tree in Macbeth, where he artistically sways to and fro) to finally getting the part of Mark Antony in Julius Caesar, only to lose it because when he trips over Browniel (more about this character later) he drops the actor playing Caesar…and that’s the director’s son!

The dialogue was very well-written, with that touch for the everyday phrase that is so natural when spoken. But Pawan did hurry up the diction a little, and I hope he slows it down for his next show. However, his grasp of (at least the well-known lines of) Shakespeare helped him a lot with his excellent comic timing; the spoof speech on “to act or not to act” brought the house down! And in the one or two places that Pawan did fluff the dialogue a bit, it was as if it was the Actor that was doing it; it didn’t seem out of place.

As the actor faces multiple rejections in each of the reality shows or the productions that he compromises his principles to act in, he breaks down….

One of the most impressive facets of the show was Pawan’s use of props. A chair, Browniel (I hope I have the spelling right!) Funich (”derived from Furniture”) the folding chair, is a character by himself. The Actor has a love-hate relationship with Browniel, and the sequence where the chair and he have an altercation was a great piece of theatre-gymnastics!

Also, I would not have believed earlier that one sheet of white cloth can become: the foliage of a tree,Othello’s cape, Macbeth’s witch’s robes, a soldier’s armour, Banquo’s ghost, Caesar’s shroud, the dead Caesar himself, a trumpet, an actor’s microphone, a plain bed sheet, Gandhi’s spinning mat, a ragpicker’s backpack, and the defendant’s enclosure in a court….truly innovative! Are you not intrigued about how this can be done? Pawan is certainly well-versed in stagecraft and mime.

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Pawan Kumar is staging two of his plays, “The Final Rehearsal”, and “The Woman in Me”, at Ranga Shankara ; the first on July 15 and 16 at 7.30pm, and the second on July 17 and 18, at the same time.

“The Final Rehearsal” is a dark comedy about a reality show, which was written in 2002. “The Woman in Me” is about how men look at women, and touches on women’s issues.

Pawan Kumar is also making his mark in writing the story and screenplay for Bollywood movies, and is preparing to direct a Kannada movie in October.

Ranga Shankara and DHNiE (Deccan Herald Newspapers in Education) are staging a theatre festival, which will kick off on July15, and will feature a total of 35 shows till the end of August.

The festival starts off with “Gumma Bande Gumma” (an adaptation of the German play, “Max Und Milli”, from July 15 to 18. The play is about a child’s ability to connect to others regardless of adult restrictions.

This play will be followed by “The First Leaf”, written by Padmavati Rao. The play is about Putti, her brothers Dodu and Chinna, and their neighbours, facing the challenges of a middle-class family.

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I have always appreciated Girish Karnad’s plays, and have watched some of them in many languages…and so it’s a pleasure for me to put up this announcement from IFA about his new play….

Puravankara Presents

Wedding Album

Written by Girish Karnad

Directed by Lillette Dubey

Organised by

and in support of

India Foundation for the Arts

Bangalore – July 10th & 11th, 2008

Time: 7.30 pm, Duration: 90 minutes, Language: English

Venue: Chowdiah Memorial Hall

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“Retell”, a series of narrative plays, was performed on June 5 and 6 at Ranga Shankara. The production was by Theatre Nisha, a group from Chennai, and the design and direction was by V Balakrishnan.

Some of the narratives were based on translations of the stories of Satyajit Ray, Gopa Majumdar, and others from the works of Goli Taragi, by Karim Emani and Sara Khalili.

“Bhuto” by Satyajit Ray

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Yesterday and today, theatregoers at Ranga Shankara are fortunate to see two excellent plays– one, an amalgam of three playlets, Fawn Lilies, Water Lilies, and Black Lilies, written and directed by Gowri Ramnarayan, and staged by JustUs Repertory, and late in the evening, at 9.30pm, a very short play by August Strindberg, which was acted as a monologue by Claire Denieul (There, Aru, I think I have the spelling right!)

The 3-play series (for want of a better word) strings together three very different incidents, happening in the US; first, two people meeting in a park in Columbus, Ohio; second, two people meeting in an exhibition of Monet, at Houston,Texas; and the third, two people meeting in an airport lounge in Dulles airport in Washington.

In the first of the triptych, a dietician from Vijayawada has just been passed over by her boyfriend, who prefers war to love. She comes to the park to do some birdwatching, and gets talking to an unusual and interesting vagabond, who, in his own words, “lived in a tree for six months or so” when he was “down to his last quarter” and found himself espousing green causes.

In the second, an investment banker who is scornful of Monet’s paintings is intrigued by a Sri Lankan woman’s fascination with the painter, and they segue through a conversation about topics which start with art and meander afar.

The third piece has a young school teacher from Tamil Nadu on her first trip abroad for a conference, getting into a conversation with Hungarian novelist who isa Nobel laureate ..and showing him perspectives that he has not thought of before.

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