Vijay Tendulkar’s play Kanyadaan, a well-known Marathi playwright was staged at DVS Ranga Mandira in Shivamogga on October 14 and 15, 2023. Both days the hall was packed. The artists of Sahyadri Ranga Taranga found favor with their performance.
After the show, actors had an interaction with the audience. Theater lovers gave mixed reactions to it. Some praised for their performances as others critiqued the contents of the play written in 1983 which was a very enthusiastic learning session where many voices chipped in.
Dr. H.S Nagabhushan translated it into Kannada and also played the main role while Mr.R.S Halaswamy directed it all; both listened keenly to what opinions were shared about by those who came to watch.“The beauty of staging plays for Shivamogga audience is that they are frank in expressing their views,” says Halaswamy who is a journalist cum theatre person.
Audience also wants teams to be disciplined particularly when dealing with time management matters. Dr.Sasvehalli Sathish, an eminent director, actor and founder of Hongirana team during one of his programmes at Shivamogga recently recollected how some elderly people in the audience had objected when twenty minutes delay occurred before one of his plays commenced.
A long history of theatre
For several decades now many amateur drama groups have been active in this district centre within Karnataka called Shimoga District Centre. As per [the name] Kalavidara Sangha there are thirty two amateur theatre troupes associated with them among whom Havyasi Rangatandagala Sanghais there. They operate as one under cooperative model to carry forward amatuer theater movement.They do not engage themselves actively but organize activities and occasional holding up festival.
Amateur theatre has existed for a long time in Shimoga. The birth of amateur groups was born out of the popular companies, which used to camp in Shimoga for several months every year. Plays were staged by Gubbi Veeranna and Honnappa Bhagavatar companies, as well as those belonging to Master Hirannayya, Varadachar, Mohammed Peer, Yoganarasimha among others. The likes of Raj Kumar, Balakrishna, Narasimharaju, G.V. Iyer who later graced the silver screen visited the city for performances. Their plays were based on mythological stories.
In the 1950s a group of writers, lecturers, doctors and businessmen who had an idea about modern plays and literature came together to form United Artists; it was considered as the first amateur troupe in Shivamogga City. They included teachers,businessmen, advocates and doctors like Khandoba Rao (a lecturer), Hiriyanna(businessman), Dr Ashok Pai(noted psychiatrist)and HM Prabhakar(excellent make-up artist).
The artists chose plays that were composed by Kuvempu, T.P.Kailasam among others. Marulaiah Sa Shi, a writer, K.S.Nisar Ahmed, the poet working then at Sahyadri College in Shivamogga also formed part of them. When team members shifted to various places activities gradually dwindled. Other groups too like Sharada Kala Sangha and Navarathna Kalasangha became active with their play revolving around mythological stories.
Birth of new troupes in ‘70s
A group of vibrant teachers, writers and business people who were active in the 1970s formed a need for a community theater. Led by poet K.S Nisar Ahmed, who was also a teacher at Sahyadri College. They presented T.Prasanna Gruhastashrama written by P.Lankesh from Shivamogga and Ellige written by Na.Rathna. The performances were well received.
They later settled to form a troupe christening it Abhinaya. The team’s first play was Hayavadana by Girish Karnad the famous playwright. Directed by Gururao Bapat, a Sagar native who was then teaching at a college in Shivamogga. Music for the play composed one of its songs by T.V Hegde another lecturer. One of them sang Shiva Mogah Subbanna who won national award for playback singing sometime after Hayavadana performance had succeeded.” Moved by this success they designed their team’s logo which is related to the content of their drama.”
Jayatirtha Joshi was invited to direct an adaptation Kannada of Hindi play Andha Yug authored Dharamvir Bharati. “The play became a super-hit . We had to do several shows every day because everyone wanted to attend it. During those days , only one ticket would be given to someone per person, thus all people had waited in queue for tickets,” commented S.C.Gowrishankar, Retired Professor English & also an active member of Abhinaya.
Kantesh Murthy, A.S.Krishnamurthy BM Kumaraswamy Venkatesh Mudaliar Shivamogga Venkatesh etc., were among those who founded the troupe while N.K.Halesh (teaching at Sahyadri College), SC Gowrishankar (who translated plays of Shakespeare) and others joined later.
The artists, despite having no formal training in any institution for drama production, were ready to learn more skills and be better performers. They invited seasoned actors as well as directors to train them. “As we were making productions, Chidambara Rao Jambe from Sagar had just come out of the National School of Drama. Gururao Bapat brought him to direct us plays. He directed Tamra Patra and Dr. Siddaraju. In that way, the troupe opened up to new trends,” recalled Halesh. It was hard for this group to find female players at the beginning but eventually they managed to convince their family members who became Abhinaya members later on.
Crowd funding
In order to mobilise funds for theatre productions, the troupe raised contributions from theatre-lovers. A.S. Krishnamurthy, an active member of Abhinaya, in a recent programme, said that ₹10 was collected from a patron. “The patrons were assured of four or five plays in a year. They would get free entry to the shows. With this, we received a considerable amount at one-go and that helped us procure lights and other materials required to enhance the production,” he said. The number of patrons increased to 2,750 at one point. The team had to hold multiple shows of each play to meet the demand. S.N. Channabasappa, now BJP MLA from Shivamogga, was among those in the team engaged in back-stage works.
The team invited S. Malathi, a well-known theatre personality from Sagar, to conduct a workshop for them. She directed Bheema Kathanaka, as part of the workshop. Similarly, they invited Ashok Badaradinni to direct a play for them. N.R. Masur, who led a team of Udaya Kalavidaru in Sagar, also directed plays by Sri Ranga for Abhinaya. Gowrishankar, a professor of English, directed many Shakespearean plays. “Instead of relying on other translations of Shakespearean plays, I took on the task of translating them on my own,” said Gowrishankar. “I reduced the length of the plays to suit the theatre adaptation. The idea was to attract students to the theatre. Many of the plays chosen for production were part of the syllabus.”
More teams were established.
On the other hand, some more amateur artist groups were formed in the city; these were Kala Jyothi and Kalakirana. The theatrical activities of Kala Jyothi mainly focused on children. Several artists had trained in workshops organized by Neenasam at Heggodu, set up by K.V. Subbanna.
In later years Sahyadri Rangataranga, Ranga Prayoga, Geleyara Balaga, Chiguru, Nam Team, Srushti, Sutradhara, Hongirana, Ranga Belaku, Belaku, Samanvaya, Nam Halli Theatre and Thorana came into being.
Sahyadri Ranga Taranga that started in 1986 is still active today. Recently they staged Direct Action of Dr. Nataraj Huliyar about the life of Prof. M.D.Nanjundaswamy who was a leader of Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha. Earlier it was performed by Nagna Theatre from Bengaluru city; Shivamogga’s Sahyadri Ranga Taranga took this script for its production too with Kantesh Kadaramandalagi directing it.
Ranga Prayoga launched in 1987 stages plays written by Kuvempu only such as ‘Suryavamsha’, which brought many new names to Kannada theatre and conducted ‘Rangashataka’ a team that completed 100 children shows annually. Nam Team was started by journalists interested in theatre too with their debut play being Suryana Kudure based on a short story written by Dr.U.R.Ananthamurthy. Like this even many government employees including teachers constituted their group called Hongirana.
Building a space
For many years, theatre groups have faced the problem of poorly constructed theatres. They used Karnataka Sangha auditorium and DVS Rangamandira. “Most of the time, it was difficult to arrange chairs for the audience. Therefore, we opted to spread cotton carpets,” B.M. Kumaraswamy, a retired professor and an active participant in Abhinaya productions, reminded.
Several issues that plagued the theatre groups were solved by building Kuvempu Rangamandira in 1994. “The construction of Kuvempu Rangamandira is an interesting story on its own. The construction had been stopped due to lack of money. S.M Jaamdar as DC in Shivamogga decided to complete the project.” Raj Kumar Kannada matinee idol had come down for a programme meant to raise funds for the project. The actor entertained the audience without taking any remuneration,” Honnali Chandrashekhar told us during one of our conversations with him; he is one of Nam Team’s founders.
Shivamogga got a unit of Rangayana in 2011.There were new productions and experiments which made repertory stronger among theater groups. At Suvarna Samskruthika Bhavana where Rangayana functions is where several groups staged their production work. However, now teams are facing a lack of facilities for rehearsals.’ These demands include calls on State government to make available rooms at Kuvempu Ranga Mandira where they could rehearse.
