By naming this play as Varudhini half its impact is lost as the title suggests it is woven around Gandharva girl Varudhini. On the contrary, Varudhini is part of the main story of Pravarakhya; who is honest to his life, to parents and wife. Playwrights Subbarayudu and Purushothamacharya needlessly added some verses of their own to those already mentioned in ‘Manu Charitra.' All Varudhini does is try to entice, in vain, Pravarakhya.
This play was staged by Savera Arts of Hyderabad at Ravindra Bharati under the aegis of the Department of Culture and Theatre Development Corporation, to mark the ongoing celebrations of Telugu Theatre Day. The play is an adaptation of 15th century poet Allasani Peddana's monumental work Manucharitra . Peddana was among the eight poets of eminence in Krishnadevaraya's court. Manucharitra is a treasure trove of pristine literature. This part of Varudhini attained significance purely because of its romantic idiom, especially in the scenes between Pravarakhya and Varudhini that lasts a couple of acts. Most of the verses written by Peddana are for these two principal characters.
The verses written by this team of playwrights had trouble with the artistes memorising the lines. There was audible prompting too especially to the character of Pravarakhya. Together with a few chosen verses of Peddana, the large verse content dominated. The artistes too appeared to be in haste to finish the verse fast and then resort to unending massive ragalapanas.
Characterisation was poor. The personas of the actors in the two main roles did not match the characters they played. Bhavani and Madhubabu in these respective roles resorted to unending rendition of verses. Madhubabu was a bit better in rendition. And in a brief role of Siddha, Gangadhar also revealed some musical sense. Varudhini-crazed Gandharva's role was portrayed by Venkateswarlu.
If the play has to make a better impact in its subsequent staging, the first thing they should do is to bring down the number of verses and convert the content of other verses in to dialogue format and also to let the raga rendition remain brief and effective and name this play as Varudhini-Pravarakhya as Pravakhya leads the theme.
