Ranga Shankara: A decade of precious moments

Boy with a Suitcase

I LOVE THEATRE. As much as I love writing, reading, travelling  ~ or even breathing, I guess.

At school in Jaipur, I loved being on stage. Transforming into an 8-year-old boy in shorts at 15, playing Red Indians and cowboys, Minnie Mouse voice, silken ponytail, and all. Or being an ancient crone in a ghost story, with my hair powdered and streaked, my brow artfully etched with eye pencil.

But what I loved just as much was watching scenes come alive once the curtains went up.  Especially when Geoffrey and Laura Kendall’s Shakespearana troupe visited us at Maharani Gayatri Devi Girls’ Public School annually. Their dramatic opening line still lingers in my memory, words I took with me to Stratford-on-Avon and the recreated Globe theatre in London, ‘When Shakespeare played, the stage was bare, the throne of England was a chair in Shakespeare’s time…’

I felt so at ease while reviewing English theatre in Madras (not yet Chennai) during my first decade at Indian Express, especially brilliant productions at the Museum Theatre by directors and players like Vimal Bhagat, Ammu Matthew, Mithran Devanesan, and Nirupama Nityanandan.

When I relocated to Bangalore in May 1992, I went into mourning. As a viewer, I felt theatre during the Deccan Herald festival fell flat at Chowdiah Memorial Hall, so large, so impersonal, with acoustics more suited to music than theatre. Even Ravindra Kalakshetra, where I watched my first magical Ratan Thiyam play, seemed cold when compared to the Museum Theatre.

As if in answer to my prayers, Ranga Shankara was inaugurated in J.P. Nagar in October 2004. I have been in celebration mode ever since. The intimate space is perfect and heart-warming. So is the endearing warmth of its founder Arundhati Nag.

Now that Ranga Shankara turns ten in October 2014, I look back with wonder ~ and tenderness and incandescent joy. As a theatre buff, I would like to offer a personal tribute by sharing ten random, unforgettable moments through which I celebrate the first decade of Ranga Shankara. Here goes:

Arundhati Nag

~                ~  Listening to Arundhati Nag share the theatre’s raison d’etre in 2004, during an interview I did for The Hindu Sunday Magazine: “This theatre will strive to bring Karnataka to the centre stage of world theatre, as well as to bring world-class theatre to the common man in Karnataka.”   A dream achieved, quite irrefutably.

~              ~  The dazzling 35-day global inaugural festival from October- December 2004. It included Mysore-based Rangayana’s Kudiyattam-influenced Maya Sita Prasanga. And Habib Tanvir and his Naya Theatre’s spectacular Charan Das Chor in Chattisgarhi. And Imphal-based Chorus Repertory Theatre’s stunning presentation of Ratam Thiyam’s visually poetic Ritusamharam. I was enthused enough to attend 27 of the shows!

                 ~   November 2004. Lahore-based Ajoka Theatre’s Ek Thi Nani, in which theatre veterans Zohra Sehgal and Uzra Butt played out a plotline parallel to their own lives as sisters. Sehgal, then 92, had a fever when she stepped off her flight. But her never-say-die spirit saw her through to a standing ovation, bypassing coughs, pills and improvisations. I salute them both, onstage and off it. 

Measure for Measure

·                           ~ November 2005. Director Simon McBurney and his Euro-British Complicite theatre set the stage on fire with his interpretation of Measure for Measure as a take on the Bard for our time.  Electrifying both as drama and social commentary. I even interviewed McBurney between two back-to-back performances, the chai he requested brought to us by young playwright Swar Thounaojam. More recently, Swar’s plays have come to life at Ranga Shankara.   

·                          ~ June 2006. Germany-based Gracias Devaraj and Uwe Topmann in Nino D’Introna and Giocomo Raviccio’s ‘Robinson and Crusoe,’ a rollicking tale of two warring soldiers marooned together. Enacted in English and (yes!) gibberish, it had an audience of mainly schoolchildren rocking with laughter in their seats. As adults, hugging our knees on the steps and in the aisles, we joined in.   

·                        ~ April 2008. Under the Mangosteen Tree, directed by Rajiv Krishnan of Perch from Chennai. That was in its initial avatar as Sangathi Arinhya, a celebration of Malayalam writer Vaikom Mohammed Basheer’s life, personality and brilliant stories through a tight-knit, evocative production. In tandem with black-and-white images of Basheer’s life by Punaloor Rajan and a Moplah food festival at Anju’s in-house café.

·                    ~ June 2011. The stellar Indo-German premiere of Boy with a Suitcase, which I found rivetting enough to revisit thrice with different friends in tow. A Ranga Shankara collaboration with Mannheim’s Schnawwl Theatre, it captured dilemmas about culture, continents and identity brilliantly, especially through outstanding performances by M.D. Pallavi and Shrunga B.V.

·                  ~ March 2012: Director Sunil Shanbag’s Stories in a Song, his tribute to music as theatre (in collaboration with Shubha Mudgal and Aneesh Pradhan). Spanning seven theatrical anecdotes  (some apocryphal?), it encompassed notes from Sufi geet to Kajri, brilliantly held together by seasoned performers

·                  ~ October 2012: An outstanding global Shakespeare festival. Still luminous in memory thanks to plays like Atul Kumar’s Piya Bahurupiya (Twelfth Night) in nautanki style, the Tblisi-based Marjanishvili Theatre’s Rogort’s Genebot  (As You Like It) in Georgian (a play within a play, with backstage onstage and exquisite costumes), and even a Kiswahili rendition of The Merry Wives of Windsor, notable for its impeccable comic timing.

The Kitchen

·                 ~ August 2013. Roysten Abel’s totally experiential theatre in The Kitchen, inspired by Rumi’s kitchen at Konya in Turkey. Its highlights included a 22.5 ft. high set, 12 mizhavu drummers from Kerala live, and two actors cooking payasam from scratch onstage for the audience to taste when the last notes died down. Calling sight, sound, taste, smell and touch into play, we experienced theatre as a microcosm of life.

      *       *      *

          Thank you, Ranga Shankara for bringing the best of local and global theatre to me. For energizing me to dash from Cooke Town to J.P. Nagar every time you bring a good play to Bangalore. For tempting me with sabudana vada and akki rotti at Anju’s Café, so I am never late for a show.

         I had not imagined such a dream run when I first watched the staircase, the toilets, the café, the box-office and more fall into place over slow months in 2003- 2004.

          What can I wish you now, dear Arundhati and Team Ranga Shankara? Cheers to the next brilliant decade! And perhaps the next hundred years? 

          Bangalore loves you. So do I.

Theatre: Ranga Shankara ~ Dream of a theatre

Arundhati Nag: she brought her dream to life

THERE's a hush in the auditorium. A theatre buff shivers with anticipation. His neighbour settles into her amply cushioned seat, and then examines the coir matting under her toes, and the overhead ventilator pipes, the thrust stage for superior audience-actor interaction. They soon study the minimal settings, made of bamboo and board. 

Four musicians take their places onstage. Two actors enter, holding a banner with a picture of a golden deer on it. The stage is set. The play begins.

Can this Ramayana-based, Kudiyattam-adapted performance of "Maya Sita Prasanga" by Mysore's lauded Rangayana repertory company set the right mood for the opening of `Ranga Shankara', Bangalore's first state-of-the-art dedicated theatre? Will its exploration of illusion and reality prove potent? What will this new 300-seat theatre at J.P. Nagar mean to the city's cultural life? These questions buzz silently around the hall with its perfect acoustics, its latecomers' gallery, its brilliant lighting system, its revolving stage with a trapdoor for experiments as the invisible curtain went up on a 35-day theatre festival from October 28 to December 1, 2004. 

The event marks the culmination of a dream. The realisation of a four-year-long search for funds, for materials, for enthusiasts to build a 12,500 sq. ft., three-storey theatre complex. At the heart of this unusual theatre, built at a cost of Rs. 4 crore by the Sanket Trust chaired by Jnanpith awardee Girish Karnad, lies the story of an indomitable spirit named Arundhati Nag. Even the other trustees — including Bangalore Little Theatre (BLT) founder-member Vijay Padaki, National School of Drama graduate S. Surendranath, and theatre enthusiast S. Parameshwarappa — concede that. Similar accolades come from the project's consultant, president of the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) M.S. Sathyu. 

Twenty-five years ago, when this multilingual stage and screen actress relocated to Bangalore from Mumbai after marrying Kannada thespian Shankar Nag, she carried within her a deep longing. To build a space with a voice similar to Mumbai's popular Prithvi Theatre in Karnataka's capital. As her dream found resonance in like-minded individuals, their first wish was granted with the laying of a foundation stone at a government-donated site on November 9, 2000, by former Chief Minister S.M. Krishna and an initial corpus of Rs. 20 lakhs. 

Since then, Arundhati's inner fire has melded together a crew of theatre buffs. A software specialist put her job on hold to assist with the nitty-gritty of `Ranga Shankara'. A journalist chose to coordinate the festival's variegated seminars and allied screenings. Mumbai's Atul Kumar, who directed "The Blue Mug", volunteered to work at the theatre till February 2005. Granite for the flooring and the dramatic staircase were donated by a quarry, while another concern cut it for free. Manufacturers of sanitary ware and bathroom fittings donated their mite. A woman labourer from rural Karnataka gave Arundhati Rs. 5, while industries like Mysore Sales International Limited (MSIL), Biocon, L&T, Himatsingka Seide Ltd., and Volkart contributed to the corpus. Oddly enough, not a single IT major chose to be part of the big picture.

Looking back, Arundhati recalls her experiences leading up to October 28: "All of Bangalore knew I was building this theatre. There's was only one song I'd been singing for four years. For someone who was doing 42 shows a month 25 years ago, that's been the journey. But it's been worth it."

 

Worth it? Of course. Because this intimate theatre is dedicated to the late visionary Shankar Nag. (Its name stems from ranga, which is Sanskrit for theatre, and the art's presiding deity, Shankara). Because the theatre has a unique computer-based script, sound, costume bank and video archive to enrich research. Because its inaugural festival celebrates Indian legends like Habib Tanvir from Chattisgarh and Ratan Thiyam from Manipur, while initiating an exchange with the inspiring Prithvi Theatre annual festival. (As part of this, Tanvir's Naya Theatre presents "Agra Bazar" and "Charan Das Chor", followed by Ajoka's "Aik Thi Nani" (with Zohra Sehgal and Uzra Butt), and Italy's Luoghi Delle Arte in "Commedia Delle Arte Galore". 

"Let `Ranga Shankara' speak for itself," declares Arundhati. "We know we want to showcase theatre, maybe music and dance once a year. We are committed to staging 300 shows every year. Today, theatre seems to have lost the capacity to address issues close to the hearts of the people, such as the environment or human rights. I hope Ranga Shankara will become a nerve centre to address community issues."

She stresses, "This theatre will strive to bring Karnataka to the centre-stage of world theatre, as well as bring world-class theatre to the common man in Karnataka." By her side, Sanjana Kapoor of Prithvi seconds every word. Towards this end, assisted by a generous subsidy from a major cell phone operator, ticket rates have been kept at a uniform, class-free Rs. 49, while the theatre facilities can be hired at approximately Rs. 5,000 per day, including lights and sophisticated equipment.

The hope is that `Ranga Shankara' will become a nerve centre to address community issues.

As crowds gather to watch a platform performance based on the recent incidents in Manipur in the ground floor foyer, as a prelude to the Rangayana show, theatre is being discussed threadbare in the candlelit café. Other buffs browse through cultural fare at the in-house bookstore. To every participant, it's heady to breathe deeply of the theatre of life.

What does it all portend? Sathyu, a celebrated theatre veteran, says, "It's the only theatre built entirely by theatre people. It's the best in India today, completely responsive to our needs."

Padaki, who's responsible for creating a new generation of enthusiasts with his annual summer workshops, adds, "Only through collaboration can theatre touch the community. We'd be keen to build `Ranga Shankara' into a viable institution."

 

`Ranga Shankara's' future plans include initiating German GRIPS-style theatre workshops for over 20,000 city students between ages seven and 12 round the year. And bridging the divide between Kannada theatre at H.N. Kalakshetra and English plays at Chowdiah Memorial Hall, and luring talented actors back from TV and films. "Theatre people now have no excuse. They have to win the audiences back," smiles Arundhati. 

Arundhati recalls that Shankar Nag saw theatre as "a unifying language, a forum for creating sensitive experiences". Within the `Ranga Shankara' vision, there is no place for parochialism, class or linguistic politics. Now that `Ranga Shankara' is dramatically real in brick-and-concrete, how does the dynamic woman at its very heart feel?

"I can't believe this is true," Arundhati whispers. "I feel I'm living a dream." But, of course, it took blood, sweat and tears to create this dream of a theatre. 

Is this the cue for a pan-Indian theatre renaissance? 

(Originally in The Hindu Sunday Magazine, 2004)