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.