Looking back

Six years ago, we staged our first show as Rangavalli. Surely, time flies very quickly. We, Ravi, Arun, Ramesh and myself, four students of the, now supposedly grossly mismanaged, Bharateeya Ranga Shikshana Kendra of Rangayana were not content just being students and wanted to carry on our theatre activities even after the course. We met during the one year weekend theatre training course, which we completed in the year 2004. After that, it took almost two years to realize that dream of forming a theatre troupe and staging shows independently.

It was on June 17^th, 2006, that we staged the first show of Annayana Maanava Shaastra by A K Ramanujam and Mayaamruga by Poornachandra Tejaswi, at Bhoomigeetha, Rangayana, both directed by Prashanth S Hiremath.

After that, in those six years, we have produced 6 plays and organized two book releases. But as a statistic it does not sound great. But we have managed that by not being full time theatre professionals. And we have enjoyed being part of those six productions, high points of that journey being the first show and the experience of working with C.Basavalingaiah. 

Right now, after six years of existence, among the first four who started it, one has left theatre permanently; another one is not currently able to devote his time to theatre due to personal reasons. But I sincerely believe that for any team to progress, it should have continuous influx of new members. And we were fortunate to be joined by many such members.

Ours is still an amateur group, at least technically. I do not know if we are still amateur in our performances. That is for the audience to decide. One of the serious problems faced by any amateur theatre team is the lack of funds. Initially, it was suggested that we approach sponsors for the funding. We did too, but without much success. We, the team members, ourselves had to pump in money for the productions. That is not the right way and will never be a permanent solution. But fortunately for us things began to change.

Now, in 2012, we are seeing money through collections, which I believe is the best way to sustain any theatre group. Also, it helped us form the trust which we had planned long back. Now, Rangavalli is a registered trust.

Coincidentally, our next performance is once again Annayana Maanava Shaastra and Maayamruga, again at Bhoomigeetha, almost exactly six years after our first show. Hopefully, this will be a new beginning and we will deal with the new problems in a much more matured way than we did in all these years. Thanks to all the past and present members, the technicians who worked with us, and the critics who wrote about us. And thanks to you, audience, for the encouragement all these years.

First Scene

One of the interesting things about our first show is our lead actor cum writer Arun forgetting his lines in the very first scene. He used to forget his lines very rarely in rehearsals, so, on stage it was a kind of mild shock to Ravi and myself. I did not know what to do, later after the show, Ravi told me, even he was perplexed and he confessed that he got little bit tensed when Arun forgot his lines.

In the video, you can see that Arun- the one with the spectacles- is just browsing the pages of the book instead of saying his dialogue. But , if you haven't seen the rehearsals, you will not know that Arun ( or Annayya, the role which he plays) has forgotten anything. In the video, it is as if he is taking his time ( or "freedom" as it is known in theater circle) !!!.

The "Show"

That was one of the important day for Rangavalli team, the culmination of all the efforts we took was "show", which was on 18 June 2006, Sunday . The initial difficulties in searching for a director and the right story and added to it the financial difficulties really took a toll on us, we had to really struggle a lot till the show date. We were only five and we had to manage everything ourselves, of course there were many who helped us a lot in the production stage. Especially, among them, I cannot thank enough "GPIER" Mohan.

The show was in Bhoomigeetha of Rangayana auditorium and we were very tensed from the morning itself. The grand rehearsal went as bad as it could go, we were not at all satisfied with it, but alas nothing could be done and we had to get on with it. The show started at exactly 6.30 pm. The show was much better than the grand rehearsal and we were happy that finally we had delivered in spite of not having any sponsors for our team.

Annayyana Manava Shastra And Maayamruga

Here, I would like to mention briefly about the plays we selected.


ANNAYYANA MANAVA SHASTHRA

An outstanding short story of Kannada Literature, A.K.Ramanujan’s Annayana Maanava Shaastra focuses on the dilemma of foreign mind versus native heart, on the platform of traditionally descended culture. Being far from homeland, Chicago, Annayya, on the path to unfold the mystery of his native culture, will eventually come face to face with the unknown tragedies of his own life.This story becomes more relevant in today’s scenario of globalization, where each individual is putting himself inevitably in uncomfortable situations.


MAAYAMRUGA

Maayamruga is a unique story in Kannada Literature, not just by the theme, but also by the way its narrated. It’s a journey to discover the mystery of death, on an abstract path. Looking at the possibilities of human belief, from a lighter perspective, it reflects the facts of failure in doing so. Though Shah and Chandru, try to prove their scientific perspective by discarding the superstitious beliefs, they get caught in their own dilemma and will be shocked by the mystery of life.

Selection of Plays

I think our director, Prashanth Hiremath, had in his mind Annayana Maanava Shastra much before we decided on that. We read many plays, but he was not satisfied with any of those. We finally zeroed in on Maayamruga (written by Tejaswi) and Annayana Maanava Shastra ( written by Ramanujan A K ).  They both were short stories, so, first we had to make a stage adaptation of both these plays.

Arun , wonderfully brought out the stage adaptation of Maayamruga, there were small , but some beautiful changes. He improvised the first scene to a great extent. As far as Annayana Maanava Shastra is concerned, he made some slight changes in the story line and a direct adaptation of dialogues from the book.

Initial Stages

When we started the team, we had a great difficulty in finding the right combination for our team. No one believed that a team could be run wholly by the artists themselves, most of the teams in Mysore are run by the Directors or Producers in some cases. The handicap which they face is they are known by their Directors and the Producers and not by their work, most of the times.

Moreover, ours was a team with just four members (Sushma joined us only when we started the rehearsals). With just four members, it was a difficult task to convince a director to take up any production, but luckily for us, we had Prashnath Hiremath who believed in us and took it upon himself to direct a play for us. This was just one step forward for us, but that one step took five months.

From here, started another set of problems for us. Firstly, selection of plays. We had to go for plays which could be enacted with just five actors. We wished to do things differently than others and wanted to break the tradition and we hope, we precisely did that. How we did that and the problems we faced on our way is definitely worth writing( atleast for me).

We began scouting for a play as early as Jan 2006. Ravi initiated to form a dedicated team to carry on theatre activities and almost forced Arun in. Since these two were the only two actors available, not to forget our another team member, Ramesh ( I had my exams coming up at that time) they were searching for a very short play with very few characters. These two could not decide on any play. Finally, they approached Prashanth Hiremath, artist of Rangayana for assistance. He initially suggested us the name of Prasanna, acclaimed theatre director. We did in fact contact him, but he was very busy with his repertory. So, Prashanth reluctantly agreed to accept our invitation to direct the play. Till then, ours was a ' all male ' team, we needed a artist to play the role of female character , that is when our "heroine" Sushma joined the team.