[Reader-list] Urban Drama June

[pritham k chakravarthy]

Sambandha Mudaliyar's Suguna Vilas Sabha is the first amateur group. The 
members were the elite of Madras who would rehearse in evenings and during 
weekends and perform their plays. Once they became popular even rehearsals 
at Victoria Public Hall were ticketed. They would stage one play for a 
month. If requested by the public they would restage a play from their 
repertoire. The only professional groups then were Boys' Companies like 
Shakthi Krishnasami or T. K. Shanmugam. They were dependant on daily 
collections made at the counter. T. K. Shanmugam's plays were staged on 
contract. S. V. Sahasarnamam who was a part of that group forms his own 
group only after N.S.K is arrested and goes to jail in 1944. As S.V.S was 
the car driver of N.S.K he forms his group Seva Stage. The main actor of 
N.S.K, K. R. Ramasami continues with Krishnan Nadaga Sabha, the original 
group. Gate collection goes to the contractor and the group is paid the 
contract money.
Triplicane Fine Arts, started by Sambu Nataraja Iyer, in late 40s was the 
first to stage plays in the sabha drama format. Their most successful play 
Thuppariyum Sambu was scripted by Devan.   Though there were groups like UAA 
etc. there were no sabhas [theatre halls] except Parthasarathy Sabha and 
Rasiga Ranjini Sabha. So all the existing groups would have to share these 
halls. These halls became numerous only in the late 50s and 60s. Between 
1965 and 1975 there were 155 sabhas in the city, some with their own space 
and members some only member and would hire halls for them [Vadyar Raman]. 
Some were one-man shows with no governing committee, elections, or audit. 
They had subscription though. In the 60s and 70s they were so dominant that 
groups had to beg to stage for their members as the sabha owner may decide 
that the particular play was not good enough for his audience. Sabha 
audience was majority Brahmins at that time. So there was no space for any 
revolutionary or contemporary idea. So if a play did not cater to this 
particular audience. The sabha will take care of providing the space and 
audience and would give a group 700/ for a show. Madurai, Coimbatore, 
Thiruchy, Salem and Bangalore also had a few powerful sabhas. Groups could 
recover the initial production cost of 15,000/ only when touring to these 
sabhas. The payment would be double and take care of all other incidental 
expenses. These sabhas are now non-existent, except Bangalore. The others 
have reduced all shows to twice a year. In the early 70s sabhas shifted 
their shows in the city to Saturdays. In 1960s payment from sabhas was 300/ 
of which the director can hope to make a profit of 35/ per show.
Komal Swaminathan, a writer from Seva Stage starts his own theatre group 
because sabhas could afford to pay SVS. Also SVS could not make a good gate 
collection like what Manohar's plays could make.  So Komal started his own 
Stage Friends. His group members though earlier with SVS with Komal agreed 
to come for a reduced payment. Komal's plays were therefore affordable to 
the sabhas. He even cast SVS in several of his plays. Sanandhi Theru was 
their first play in 1972. Since that moment he was able to stage each of his 
plays were staged minimum of 200 times in the city. His plays though 
scripted within the sabha groove, his was of a slightly better quality. He 
never resorted to puerile humor to suit the sabha. Indhu Puli Oru Penn in 
1973 was unique production. It had train rails on the stage and the sets 
would move across the rails.  But at this time several of the professional 
actors who had come from Seva Stage with Komal became popular in cinema and 
that made room for many accidental actors to emerge. By 1975, Komal was 
getting jaded with producing plays that were technically different but 
subject wise still was juvenile. He could not anymore cast SVS in major 
roles for he was too old and had lost his retaining power, but was too big 
to play minor characters on stage. He decided to change track and scripted 
Swarga Bhoomi on naxalite problem. He followed this with this was very new 
for the sabha, which thought that Komal was preaching communism and 
naxalism. . But was greatly appreciated by the audience. He managed to stage 
it 100 times within the city. He followed this with Chekku Madukal, which 
dealt with agrarian problems with the zamindari system 1976.  Though it 
started as a sabha drama, it caught the attention of the Communist Party of 
the state who adopted it and decided to tour it through the state over 100 
shows a year. This made it possible for the play to travel to remote 
villages often staged on fields till 1985.  The audience number would 
sometimes be over 2000. While the Communist Party was very keen about the 
subject, they wanted the actors to raise the party flag in the climax. 
Actors refused for they were all believers, not atheists. The party had to 
agree for this play to be staged with no communist icons on as props. 
Unfortunately, this accidentally gave a communist image to Komal himself 
that now the sabhas were truly scared of staging him for their audience. 
Komal followed this play with his most famous play Thaneer Thaneer in 1980.

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