Dasa Purandara 2 Musical Drama 4th June 2011

[kssr]

This is a play directed by Dr.Geetha Ramanujam and held at HN Kalakshetra in Jayanagar. I have seen the earlier version with Sri.RK Padmanabha playing purandara dasa and Manasi Prasad playing the role of his devotee born in a devadasi family. These two were absent in this second edition- rather, replaced by new actors.

This is one of the best plays I have witnessed. Although not fully conversant with Kannada I could appreciate various aspects of the play. For being an amateur director, and obviously with very limited resources, Dr.Geetha has done a fantastic job.

It starts with Purandara dasa's initial stingy phase as Seenappa Nayakkan also nicknamed navakoti narayana. Then he renounces all his riches and goes to Hampi to get Deeksha and goes on to compose songs in Kannada for the masses.

Various messages and aspects of his life are depicted- compositions towards untouchability, women's lib, vedanta, philosophy, music and so on. His contribution to CM is also elaborated. The opposition he faces at every step from the pandits and daasaas of his time are shown very well.

All the actors, although amateurs have shown such deep expressions, it is really admirable how Dr.G has taken pains to train them. There was a scene when PD delivers a dialogue, the five actors on stage show totally different expressions based on their reaction to the view expressed. Admiration by his disciple girl, derision by the girl's mother (devadasi), acceptance with reverence by PD's wife, casual disregard (alakshiyam)by the lady who does not want to give even a bit of raagi to the unchivruththi of PD, devotion by this lady's daughter in law. It is to be seen to be believed. Simply amazing. Whoever has played Mrs.PD's role is unbelievably good. There are scenes when hardly anyone would have been left unmoved.

Also, there are good "techniques" used. One speaker slowly fades his voice and the other one picks up the tone when multiple events take place on the stage. Also, portion of the stage (some of the actors) freezes when the other portion comes alive. I do not know if Dr.G has taken special drama training. I do not think so. But the amount of creativity, coordination and imagination is simply mind boggling.

The music was also very good. The male singer, Dilip Sinha ( disciple of Smt. Neela Ramgopal) was superb. They are still using the tunes set by Sri.RKP for the earlier version. The proper merging of the songs with the context on stage is done very intelligently.

This drama may not be a great success like commercial productions, due to the theme itself which may not be so appealing to the masses. But if anyone gets a chance I seriously recommend them to see it. I do not think it is being enacted frequently.

My sincere congratulations to Dr.Geetha and her entire team for this wonderful piece of art.

[rshankar]

Sri KSSR, if you ever get a chance, please try and get a set of VCDs of a movie called 'purandaradAsar' - the speciality of this movie was that it was entirely enacted by students (all under 10 or 12 years of age) of dance guru Smt. Krishnakumari Narendran - it was in a music/dance format, and is absolutely delightful.

[shivanuja]

Im reminded of the Dance musical staged by SYAMA Singapore in 2009. A box-office sold-out event, it had dancers Sadhana Rajaram, LS Prakruthi, Bharathi and Atira playing lead items, with Srilakshmi on the nattuvangam. Songs were sung by Bhagya Murthy and other distinguished artistes from Singapore. Creative direction was by Veena artiste Ramkumar Vasudevan. A lady called Vishalakshi performed the role of Purandara dasar superbly. The musical was embedded with dialogue, ugabogas, songs and dances. A visual treat!! Check for the photos at http://www.syama.org