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Intellectual sparring between close friends

Staff Reporter

‘Suryana Kudure’ to be staged tomorrow

East vs. west: ‘Suryana Kudure’ projects the dilemma between orthodoxy and modernity.

Bangalore: Samashti, a Kannada theatre group, is organising U.R. Ananthamurthy’s play “Suryana Kudure”, performed by Janamanadata Heggodu, at H.N. Kalakshetra, National College, Jayanagar, on July 4 at 7 p.m.

The play, directed by M. Ganesh, a Ninasam graduate, looks at what happens when two worlds collide in a remote town in the Western Ghats. The narrator has left his home, toured the world, and returned, and is the object of the townsmen’s awe.

The other is Venkata, his childhood friend who helps everybody but is perceived as an “incompetent”.

The story begins with the confrontation of these two men who are quite the antithesis of each other.

Suspicions

Initially, suspicious of each other, their relationship enters the phase of enquiry through questioning.

The narrator bombards his friend with queries to which Venkata responds through his silences and deeds.

On stage, the sparring takes the form of an intellectual bullfight. Perhaps the lives of the two are like parallel lines, which never intersect. The play then takes a turn when Venkata takes the narrator to his home and gives him an oil bath. This cleanses the narrator’s learnt theories and preconceived notions.

The play projects the dilemma between orthodoxy and modernity, east and west, urban and the rural and, in a broad sense, holds up a mirror to our lives.

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