ranga shankara

It was like a rare alignment of the planets: several factors come together to pull me out of my usual Ranga Shankara ambit for watching a play. I had not been to visit Bangalore International Centre, which opened a while ago in Domlur; Bangalore Little Theatre, as part of their "VP 80" festival, was staging "Credit Titles"; the play, written by Vijay Padaki, whose 80th birthday the festival marks, was based on a story by Vinod Vyasulu, an eminent economist whom I've known for a long time, as our daughters share a cose friendship dating from 1988. And last but…

I am often asked why I go to watch children's theatre shows. People usually associate children's theatre, or puppet theatre, with a "fit only for children" narrative, too simple to hold an adult's attention. But plays, or to be accurate, performances, like "Woogie Boogie", by Brush Theatre of South Korea, staged on 18th July 2019 at Ranga Shankara as part of the "AHA!" children's international puppet theatre festival, show how any adult can be as entranced as a child. On the child's level, the clowning and the brisk narrative are very entertaining; but on an adult level, one can see…

Do adults go to watch children's plays? Or to be more precise, do adults go to watch children's puppet theatre...without children accompanying them? The answer, for me, was a resounding yes. I had been hoping to take my grandchildren to at least some of the puppet theatre festival be at Ranga Shankara, under the AHA! banner. The "Same-Same" theme of the festival. Pic: Deepa Mohan Language and music classes in the evenings prevented my grandchildren from coming along with me, but when a friend, Harini Srinivasa Rao, told me that she could not utilize her three tickets, I jumped at…

It had been quite a while since I went to Ranga Shankara for a play, and the blurb about "Bali" was interesting enough to pull me in. Here's the quotation from the excellent brochure that was handed out before the play: "Adishakti's Bali is a retelling of the various events that lead up to the battle between Bali and Ram and eventually, the death of Bali. The play explores the notion of right and wrong, and how it may change when each and every character is given an opportuntiy to voice their thoughts and opinions." With this intriguing introduction, I…

Since I have enjoyed the work of Tahatto for many years now (you can read my review of another of their plays, here (written on a rainy evening exactly 5 years and 3 days ago!) I looked forward to watching "remember Remember" by this young and talented group, on another rainy evening, (12 Oct '17) and neither my friends nor I were disappointed. Pic: Thomas Kadavil Abraham The play had a good house, too considering that it was the middle of the week, and the audience had braved weekday traffic and heavy rain to get to Ranga Shankara. The assistant…

Since I have enjoyed the work of Tahatto for many years now (you can read my review of another of their plays, here (written on a rainy evening exactly 5 years and 3 days ago!) I looked forward to watching "remember Remember" by this young and talented group, on another rainy evening, (12 Oct '17) and neither my friends nor I were disappointed. Pic: Thomas Kadavil Abraham The play had a good house, too considering that it was the middle of the week, and the audience had braved weekday traffic and heavy rain to get to Ranga Shankara. The assistant…

There are times when the production of a play makes the task easy for the reviewer. When there are plenty of criticisms to be made, it always grieves me to have to make negative comments, when I know that each stage production has so much of passion, dedication and sheer hard work that has gone into it.  But when a production is, from both artistic, aesthetic, and technical standpoints, excellent and highly professional, the critic’s task is just to enumerate the good points.  The play, “Krishna’s Dairy”, by Jacob Rajan, who also essayed the two characters who feature in it,…

There are times when the production of a play makes the task easy for the reviewer. When there are plenty of criticisms to be made, it always grieves me to have to make negative comments, when I know that each stage production has so much of passion, dedication and sheer hard work that has gone into it.  But when a production is, from both artistic, aesthetic, and technical standpoints, excellent and highly professional, the critic’s task is just to enumerate the good points.  The play, “Krishna’s Dairy”, by Jacob Rajan, who also essayed the two characters who feature in it,…

It's always intriguing to watch poetry being dramatized, and I was keen on going to watch "Kitchen Poems" by Dhiruben Patel, a 90+ year-old Gujarati writer. Padmavathi Rao, who was the solo actor in this performance produced by Aantarya Film and Theatre House, is well-known to the theatregoers of Bangalore, and it was with pleasant anticipation that I went to the performance. I was not disappointed. Dhiruben's poems (written in English) were translated on to the stage seamlessly. Padmavathi's command over the words showed in the effortless way in which she seemed, not to be playing an archetypal woman and…

It's always intriguing to watch poetry being dramatized, and I was keen on going to watch "Kitchen Poems" by Dhiruben Patel, a 90+ year-old Gujarati writer. Padmavathi Rao, who was the solo actor in this performance produced by Aantarya Film and Theatre House, is well-known to the theatregoers of Bangalore, and it was with pleasant anticipation that I went to the performance. I was not disappointed. Dhiruben's poems (written in English) were translated on to the stage seamlessly. Padmavathi's command over the words showed in the effortless way in which she seemed, not to be playing an archetypal woman and…