The Andhra region has a rich legacy of classical and folk performing traditions dating back to the ancient age of the Satavahanas. However, it was not until the Altekar Hindu Natak Mandali from Kolhapur in Maharashtra toured the east coast town of Rajahmundry, that local practitioners of proscenium-style theatre emerged in droves, mounting Parsi theatre style mythologicals and farces as well as dramatic works in Telugu that had long existed only on paper. The first ever instance is from 1880, when Kandukuri Veeresalingam Pantulu, the father of the Telugu renaissance, staged Vyavahara Dharma Bodhini , a topical play on corrupt legal practices, on a one-dimensional stage which was such a novelty at the time.
Family affairs
Given this history, it is heartening that a travelling caravan theatre with a provenance almost as old as modern Telugu theatre itself, is still extant today. The Surabhi theatre of Andhra Pradesh is named after the village it hails from in the culturally rich Kadapa district. The collective was founded in 1885 by Vanarasa Govinda Rao who inherited his adoptive father’s shadow-puppetry group, and took to performing its repertoire as live drama with actors. Rao’s well-received staging of Keechaka Vadha , a popular episode from the Mahabharata, at a local wedding set his company on a hitherto uncharted course that established the framework for family-owned professional theatre in the region. They were the only company in which women — albeit of the same family — played female parts, and the first to issue tickets to paying audiences. Over successive generations, the brand has extended itself into a consortium of several commercial troupes, all with linkages of lineage with Rao’s original flagship endeavour. At its peak, more than 60 Surabhi troupes operated in the region. This number has dwindled down to just five, and the largest of these is the Venkateswara Natya Mandali, founded in 1937. Still very much a family enterprise, with 60-odd members, the group is currently housed at Hyderabad’s Public Gardens where a performance of Bhakta Prahlada last month, under the aegis of the Qadir Ali Baig Theatre Festival, marked 80 years of the troupe’s existence.
Staged devotion
The myth of Bhakta Prahlada easily lends itself to the Surabhi treatment. A multitude of intricately painted backdrops and disarmingly illuminated onstage mise-en-scène evoked each episode associated with the young devotee’s chequered life. These were the palaces he grew up in, the dark chambers — where his father, Hiranyakashipu, sought to incinerate him — and the open pastoral settings where he is frequently abandoned by royal lackeys. Sitting near the stage allowed one to observe the logistics of stagecraft with its multiple screens at varying depths from stage front. The complex systems of pulleys and strings seemed almost primitive and inefficient at first, but the clockwork execution of scene transitions by an intrepid backstage crew belied that initial impression. Through the open wings, a veritable warehouse of masks, costumes and props was visible, as actors waited to make their entries into the mêlée. There were glitches and snafus certainly, but of the kind that allowed us to stay with this creaking makeshift universe of gods and monsters. In an age where production design is either stodgy and static, or minimalist, this unrestrained visual texture was a sight for sore eyes. Although colours were a-plenty, there was little garishness on display.
Drama and deliverance
Each attempt at the young Prahlad’s life — by serpents, or drowning, or fire — gave expression to the troupe’s signature visual effects. These belonged to the age of theatrical smoke and mirrors, and although there was a sense of each set-piece being a museum relic almost, the unity and sincerity of presentation allowed us to appreciate each ‘trick’ with fresh eyes, and buy into the spirit of performance without eye-rolling opprobrium for the most part. Some moments were gimmicky — like the illuminating of Kayadu’s womb as her unborn child sings along with the holy chants extolling Narayan, the object of his future devotion. For the religious-minded, these are important signposts to cover, if the sing-alongs during bhajans were any indication. Given that the Venkateswara Natya Mandali is a family enterprise, there was no shortage of children to parade out as Prahlad at various stages of his childhood, starting right from infancy with a live baby carried out by its mother even as it bawled its eyes out in the harsh light amidst loud fanfare. The audience seemed to find these moments sufficiently endearing and other babies too made cameo appearances later. While this cemented the notion of Surabhi theatre as a sprawling clan of Ekta Kapoor proportions, the scenes weren’t exactly setting parenting goals even if context is everything.
History relived
As a play, Bhakta Prahlada comes packaged with its own anticipation factor. The stringent conditions of his death laid out by Hiranyakashipu, after years of austerities, sets the stage for the mythical appearance of Narasimha. This creates some suspense regarding how a known episode might be depicted, much in the same way as Ram Leela watchers might wait with bated breath to witness the burning of Lanka by Hanuman in all its theatrical glory. Here, the pay-off moment wasn’t entirely as spectacular, as promised on the cover. We were certainly chastened by the victory of good over evil, but the Narsimha of our collective imaginations, who was to be a feat of stagecraft and performance, failed to appear. However, entertainment attuned to contemporary sensibilities doesn’t really need to come under the play’s purview — the mellifluous singing to a vintage live band and thunderous performances by actors in full classical-era regalia are signifiers of a preserved form that should now be impervious to reinvention or change if it is survive as an artefact of living history.
