Yuvakalavahini presented the evergreen mythological play ‘Srikrishna Rayabaram’ at Thyagaraya Ganasabha to mark the Silver Jubilee of veteran theatre activist T. Nagi Reddy, who had brought alive many a mythological role to life during his acting career.
This play generally lays ground for Krishna to play ambassador of Pandavas in Kaurava court in the first two acts ‘Padaka Seenu’ where Srikrishna divides his army, keeping himself on the side of Pandavas and his whole army with Kauravas, with a rider that he shall not touch any weapon, and then ‘Upaplavyam’ sequence where Dharmaja finally bows down to the pressure of his brothers and Draupdi to first go to Kaurava court as their ambassador to earn peace, if they don’t, declare war. The play unusually avoided the first two sequences, preparatory for war, for want of time and opened with Kaurava court sequence.
In fact the Kaurava court drama itself takes maximum time. This evergreen mythological was penned by Tirupathi Venkata Kavulu with loads of verses in dialogue orientation. T. Nagi Reddy played Srikrishna.
T. Nagi Reddy’s partly prosaic rendition of verses had electrifying effect and drew applause. Even the verses written by the poet duo are powerful and comprehensible and Nagi Reddy captured the imagination of the house with his sensible presentation.
Satyanarayana played the role of Drutarashtra who headed the Kaurava Court and tried to calm down his son prince Duryodhana, brilliantly played by veteran Salvachari. M. Arjuna Rao, another stalwart player of mythological roles portrayed Karna, the right hand man of Duryodhana. G. Rajasekhar as Aswathama, Malladi Ramana as Bhishma, Malladi Gopalakrishna as Drona and Jangayya Gowd as Vikarna were all the rightists who strive to keep the country away from war, played their roles convincingly.
