At its new location ensconced within an otherwise nondescript high-rise in upscale Lokhandwala, Studio Tamaasha continues its whirring. It has only been a few months since the popular alternative venue unexpectedly closed shop at Aaram Nagar, the neighbourhood where it had helped activate a culturally engaged ecosystem, leaving behind a noticeable fissure where it once stood. Propitiously though, they soon found another address where their activities could be resumed. This week, as a tribute to theatre legend Girish Karnad, they are putting up BookEnds — two evenings of dramatic readings of texts from the great playwright’s substantial oeuvre.
Myth and history
Significantly, selected for this endeavour are Yayati , Karnad’s first full-length play written in 1960, as a 22-year-old Rhodes Scholar, and Crossing to Talikota, his final work. The latter is the author’s own English translation of the Kannada original, titled Rakshasa Tangadi, released in 2018. Yayati will be read in Hindi, from the translation by B.R. Narayan. “In a sense, these two plays hold the body of work, the two ends of the spectrum,” says Studio Tamaasha’s co-founder, Sunil Shanbag.
Yayati is based on an episode from the Mahabharata. Because of his philandering ways, the eponymous king is cursed to a premature decrepitude, and his redemption lies in a benevolent soul exchanging their youth with him, which his son Pooru selflessly volunteers to do. The moral dilemmas that unfold, particularly the challenges posed by the wilful Chitralekha, Pooru’s wife (a character Karnad invented), makes for a work rich in psychoanalytical detail. Although the playwright considered the play to be part of his ‘juvenalia’, he came up with a fresh English translation in 2008, which formed the basis of Narayan’s translation.
Rakshasa Tangadi comes more than 20 years after Karnad’s last historical play, The Sword of Tipu Sultan (1997). Along with Taledanda (1990), based on Lingayatism, the 12th century radical reform movement, the three works form a triptych of sorts on Karnataka’s history of over a thousand years.
The final play is based on the Battle of Talikota (1565), a watershed and historical clash between the Deccan Sultanates and the Vijayanagar Empire, which led to its unlikely decimation. From Tamaasha’s program notes, the play “explores in detail the complex nexus of gender, caste, clan and religious loyalties that [led to this] unforeseen catastrophe.”
Socio-political context
Although Shanbag’s production of Taledanda in Hindi, as Rakt Kalyan, with students of the Drama School Mumbai earlier this year, was his first stab at a Karnad text, he is well-versed with the nuances of the playwright’s works. He is quick to mention that the chosen plays are not definitive works. They draw from mythology and history, which Karnad is known for, but the playwright also dramatised folk legends in a work like Nagamandala (1988), and his most recent plays like Benda Kaalu on Toast (2012) and Odakalu Bimba (2006) were situated in contemporary socio-political contexts. The BookEnds selections, separated by almost six long decades, do give us a glimpse of a writer’s journey and his growth. “ Yayati has the energy and impulse of a much younger person, while Rakshasa Tangadi is a much more calmer work and his understanding of politics perhaps represents a completely different mindset at work,” explains Shanbag. “Most of the characters in the later work are above 60 years of age, which in itself is remarkable.”
Although the readings won’t be fully rehearsed, they feature an interesting miscellany of committed actors that include Rajit Kapur, Lovleen Misra, Aseem Hattangadi, Ajitesh Gupta, Asif Ali Beg and Shanbag himself. While BookEnds is a one-off event, Studio Tamaasha recently organised another edition of its signature Urdu Readings, and a staging of Abhinav Grover’s performed reading Kutta Aurat Aadmi. Fortunately for theatrewallahs, they are also planning to revive their coveted monthly residencies, in a fresh innings that’s not short on enthusiasm and goodwill.
BookEnds: Yayati will be read today at 7 p.m.; Crossing to Talikota will be read on July 5 at 7 p.m. at Studio Tamaasha; free entry but a RSVP at tamaashatheatre @gmail.com is a must.
