It's home to us.
We can walk
around blindfolded, know the numbers of steps to the first greenroom,
the width of the wings, what the cyclorama feels like when one rests
a tired cheek on it, the taste of the sabudana vades and definitely better than
to eat or sleep (openly) in the auditorium.
Ranga Shankara,
Arundhati Nag's baby and one of the dead-best theatre facilities in
the country, turned 9 on October 24th this year and
will shortly kick off it's 10th Theatre Festival -
Samprati, a platform to delve into the works of Girish Karnad. A fair chunk of the sun for this well known Bangalore playwright.
If we* love RS in
the times of cholera, chikungunya and the rest of the year, we simply
adore it at festival time. The weather is great, the girls are
pretty, some folks are witty and everyone gets down with the buzz and
excitement of a darkened theatre and...the lights coming on. The
sheer, insurmountable thrill of witnessing live actors on stage.
I spoke to Suri
(S.Surendranath) the new Artistic Director of Ranga Shankara, the
morning before the festival begins. Despite being immersed in
streamers, posters, interns and having to solve every manner of
pre-festival crisis, Suri is his game and funny self, one eye on his
laptop and the other on Veronica. “Ayyo Rama” he says “not 15
years, just 9. It's the 10th festival though.” In tandem with the festival in Bangalore, away in Mannheim, Lichtenstein and Nuremberg, the super successful Ranga Shankara-Schnawwl Theatre production 'Boy with a Suitcase" begins it's 8th run. Meanwhile Aru, utterly unphased by the hectic nature of it all, nibbles on a plate of bhel puri
knowing, que
será será.
So, go people, go
and enjoy Samprati! Eid is here and Deepavalli is around the corner.
The energy at Ranga Shankara, during the festival, is electric, like
nothing else. There will be seminars, discussion, debate, videos of
monologues and lots and lots of theatre. Stimulate yourself (ok, I
didn't mean in quite that way). Go to Ranga Shankara if you've never
been before, you will be so glad you did. And if you are one of that
royal we*, well, you know what I'm talking about.
Over to Suri...
1. Any pet dreams
for RS, Suri? Where would you like to see it go in the next few
years?
I want to reach
out to the younger generation. That is where a lot of good and
path-breaking things are happening. The new generation or the younger
generation has developed its own language. Also, if you look at the
demography of the country, about 600 million are under 35 today,
making India the biggest youth nation. And about 140 million are
around 19 years. How can we forget this audience? It is important
that they are given a platform to say something that they really want
to say. So in the next couple of years you may see a lot of these
young ones performing at Ranga Shankara.
2. Samprati
focuses on the works of Girish Karnad...what brought this on? Are you
looking at new audiences? New interpretations?
It is precisely
with the same approach we started ideating for this festival. Give
platforms to the younger generation. Girish Karnad's playwriting
completes five decades came in as a bonus. Then we thought why not
marry the two generation. For me it is a wonderful happening - Girish
Karnad is from a generation earlier than me and the directors are
from a generation after me. It is a kind of bringing tradition and
modernity together, like what Girish Karnad has done in his
playwriting. For him Modernity and Tradition are not two separate
idioms. They are just two phases of any creative process. Like
Ananthamurthy says, we must often question tradition to rediscover
modernity. And this generation, in these plays, are doing exactly the
same. Through Girish Karnad's plays they are questioning the
tradition, they are redefining modern society, they are
re-interpreting his works in a modern context. Yes I am trying
to reach out to newer audience. Even if I get about 20 new audience
per day, I am through. I will have achieved something.
3. What about new
writing....are you exploring ways to encourage and develop a new crop
of playwrights?
This festival
could be a step for me to understand the way the younger generation
works. In the coming years I think we should allow new writing to be
on stage. There is an immediate necessity to get new play writing on
board. We need to support new playwrights. Theatre cannot be
stagnant. It lives in this moment. And to make it more lively we need
this new play writing.
4. Seeing the
spate of new and devised works at Ranga Shankara over the last year,
do you see the need for dramaturgical interventions or guidance? Do
you foresee the introduction of dramaturgs to our theatre-making
process?
The need for a
dramaturg is more immediate than yesterday. We need not intervene in
the process. But certainly we need to guide them. A playwright gives
us a focused play. Which is then open to many interpretations with a
director/directors. With a devised play, though they may be good,
this 'focused element' is often missing. When you have a team
writing/developing a play, this is natural. It is then we need a
dramaturg, to put the process, and content in order. Not to spill
over.
Dramaturgy brings
in a kind of cohesiveness to the entire process, from ideating to
scripting and structuring the play. The dramaturg, he or she, is as
responsible as the director to take the play to the audience. The
director can only take the play further from where the dramaturg
leaves off.
5. Do you foresee
a time when Ranga Shankara spreads its wings and has festivals at
other venues? For instance, what about a Folk and Traditional Theatre
Festival at Infinite Souls?
Inshah-allah.
Right now we are planning to take our AHA! productions to other
venues in Karnataka. I come from a strong Karnataka background. I
feel children in other towns of Karnataka are deprived of good
entertainment. Good theatre, I feel, should reach out to them. Show
them what is good. It has some challenges. Language is one. English
may not be accepted all over. We need to produce some Kannada plays
and take them out of Bangalore. Holding festivals is a humongous
challenge. We need a lot of man-power. Ranga Shankara is ready to
explore this possibility with a group of like minded people/teams.
Why not...
6. What about
theatre pedagogy? I have personally been involved with the pedagogy
exercises that RS has offered the local community, including the
Theatre Pedagogy for Toddlers Workshop. Do you see a Pedagogy
Department at RS in the future?
I did not have a
clue about this. But once I saw the Portugal team in this year's AHA!
festival I am all for it. (Remember I have a grand-daughter, 18
months, who watched the show. She loved it!) We should really
seriously start this. Will you help us?
7. How does RS reach out to the
community....through interactions with school children....low income
group children and so on. In what ways do you hope to further your
outreach?
Aru and I are
talking every day about reaching out. Our main concern is to get
college students to theatre first and then to Ranga Shankara. We need
to crack this. When I was running a television channel, we had the
same challenge, to get college students to watch the programs. It is
one section whose behaviour is very difficult to predict. We need to
keep on trying. The school children are with us now. About
half-a-million kids have watched AHA! shows at Ranga Shankara. And
about one-third of them are those children who could not afford to
watch a play. Thanks to Britannia we are consistently achieving this.
But there is still a lot to do.
8. How is this RS
experience turning out for you personally? Do you hope to leave some
kind of mark on RS?
I
loved theatre. And am enjoying it. After many, many errands in my
life, I feel I have finally settled down. I really don't know
about leaving a mark. May be leave a good theatre behind?
