Celebrating its 46th anniversary, Sri Kalanikethan, a theatre organisation, invited Komali Kalasamithi of Nalgonda to stage its play Atma Geetham which dealt with the subject of man-made environmental disasters. The production adapted folk theatre technique with chorus songs punctuating the drama. It was novel theme, which connected a seventeenth century story to the present day situation. It concentrates on the current topic of felling trees, denuding the forests by selfish men. The cast had almost 30 artistes including some children. This play won second best production award in the recent Nandi Natakotsavam, besides winning another five awards for acting and technical skills. This play was written by Sishtla Chandrasekhar and directed by S.M Basha. The play opened with a folk, keeping the spot light on tribal life and exploitation of the contemporary rulers. A tiger is a character introduced to connect past with the present. Senapathi, chieftain of an army of a 17th century king, becomes barbaric, when tribals object to chopping of trees in a forest and commit mass murders of tribals, despite the pleas of the saviour of nature, Amruta Devi. Senapathi kills her too. The tiger, symbolic of animal kingdom and a witness to these barbaric acts, reappears in the modern era, when an engineer starts doing the same job of clearing forests to build a road and a dam, at the instance of a selfish politician. Here again, there is another woman crusader Medha Devi, who leads the protest and tries to save but in vain. The tribals are slaughtered by military summoned by the politician. Due to reckless blasting, the dam under construction collapses allowing the river to surge in, inundating the whole place. The politician gets caught in the flood and prays for safety. Despite protests, Medha Devi goes to his rescue. On seeing the terrified politician, the tiger says it was not interested in harming cruel animals, indicating the politician, and then says ‘if these boundaries are destroyed the civilization ends', which was the message of the drama.
The play was well supported by Surabhi's technical team in creating special effects. Music was by flutist and keyboard player V. Bhasker.
Lakshmi played both the roles of Amruta Devi and Medha Devi. Narasimha Rao appeared as the politician. Raghupati as Senapathi and Narender as engineer. Lekhanandaswami was in the role of a tribal chief. Surabhi Santosh was the tiger.
On the occasion Kommajosyula Indira, famous theatre artiste, was also felicitated and presented with a cash award, in recognition of her dedication in the field of drama. Noted playwright and winner of central Sangeetha Nataka Academy award, D.Vijaya Bhasker read out a message marking the Telugu Theatre Day, pleading for the survival of social plays with musical content too. Theatre personality M.V.S Haranatha Rao, Income Tax Commissioner T.Venkata Reddi, G.Balaramayya IAS and a stage actor too, expressed their concern for the dipping of popularity of social theatre and suggesting ways to revive it.
They released a souvenir brought out in memory of a theatre director and actor Desiraju Hanumantha Rao.
