[Reader-list] 1st posting

[pritham k chakravarthy]

30. 1. 2007

Today I am theatre professional/activist with over twenty years of 
experience. Nevertheless my beginning was when I was six years old in a form 
of theatre existing [I did not know that then] exclusively in Madras, ‘Sabha 
Drama’. After seven years of acting with various groups, I was pulled out to 
concentrate on my Matriculation. Years passed with me completely forgetting 
their existence for I had moved on to more ‘political’ forms of expression.

Over the years watching spaces in which I had performed as a child either 
pulled down or modified to accommodate other forms of elite entertainment, 
groups that once thrived as star performers now non-existent, tapes and cds 
of plays that I had heard as a child suddenly flooding the audio/video 
market, yet the practitioners of the same never admitted as having provided 
a vibrant form cultural exchange for crores is what prompts this research.

The study is not only about the spaces lost, but active agents who engaged 
with this space. More and more spaces are being converted into state-of-art 
performance spaces that can house multi-entertainment like talks, music, 
dance and theatre. The import of NRI talent means these spaces become homes 
for ‘festivals’. Therefore for the last ten years alternative festivals like 
The Other Festival and Metro Theatre Festivals are more sought after by the 
younger generation who otherwise replace this older form of entertainment 
with television serials.

And, this is form of entertainment, which was never to be blessed as 
‘theatre’ both by practitioners and theoreticians, sadly! Largely I will be 
approaching primary sources like sabha owners, former members [as many as I 
can], playwrights, actors and troupe members and scripts and reviews. Also I 
would like to see what Kristien Rudsill, a doctorate student of theatre from 
University of Texas whom I guided three years back in her reading of S. Vee. 
Shekar, one such practitioner. Do I think of theorizing what I do gather? I 
hope to, not immediately though for it seems to be more important to archive 
this first.

I am not sure what I am going to come up with. This is because some 
wonderful thoughts like a play, Flight no. 172, a play focusing on Madras 
being opened to international flights, in sadly lost. This is only one of 
the lost scripts. I am going to be rebuilding largely from memory.

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