Theatre and film person Sadanand Suvarna rated C.R. Simha’s character Tughlaq in the eponymous play better than Kabir Bedi’s in its English production. The play was written by Girish Karnad.
Speaking to The Hindu after hearing the news of the demise of Mr. Simha (72) in Bangalore on Friday, Mr. Suvarna said, he had watched the English production first in Mumbai. “I did not like that,” Mr. Suvarna said. But the performance of Mr. Simha in the B.V. Karanth-directed Tughlaq in Kannada was better. “Acting was far different,” he said of Mr. Simha. The role of Simha was “well-acclaimed”.
He recalled that both Mr. Simha and he (Mr. Suvarna) had produced the play Court Martial . The two had met during the recent release of the new print of the award-winning Ghatashraddha, produced by Mr. Suvarna.
Another theatre director Jeevanram Sullia described Mr. Simha as a “good director”, who introduced new style of “unit-wise work” for theatre production, and one who knew theatre thoroughly.
Mr. Simha knew about theatre activities in the coast very well and this he (Mr. Jeevanram) discovered when he had met him in Bangalore.
Mr. Jeevanram is impressed by the simplicity of the Mr. Simha, whose mono-acting production Neegikonda Samsa brought out the complex life of theatrepeson Samsa, who was scared of the police and was known to have sold his books to eke out a living.
Mr. Jeevanram was also impressed by Mr. Simha’s Tughlaq, which he had seen only in the form of some video clips.
He also liked Mr. Simha performance in Typical T.P. Kailasam .
The easily approachable theatre director had never craved for publicity, Mr. Jeevanram recalled.
