[Reader-list] Urban Sabha Drama - May 2007

[mahmood farooqui]

Dear Pritham,

How is that Tamil commercial theatre has such a strong reformist and
nation-building edge whereas at the same time the North Indian Parsi
theatre is content to produce 'pure entertainers.' Many would trace
the salient features of popular Hindi cinema to the impact of Parsi
theatre, in themes, dialogues, technique and writing. How is it then
that contemporary Tamil cinema, without the influence of Parsi
theatre, seems so similar today to Hindi cinema?

Best,
Mahmood

On 22/05/07, pritham k chakravarthy <prithu7 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Urban Sabha Drama -III Posting May 2007
> Pritham K. Chakravarthy
>
> Pammal Samandha Mudaliyar [1873-1967] a lawyer by profession, was the person
> who designed the ethics of Amateur Theatre in Madras Presidency in the year
> 1891, with his Suguna Vilas Sabha, now functioning from Mount Road [Anna
> Salai] in Chennai with its one performance stage. It is no more a theatrical
> space of performance. But in the early part of the century along with
> People's Park and Victoria Public Hall, this was quite an active space where
> both professional and amateur groups frequently performed their plays.
> Having witnessed performances by professional groups at People's Park and
> observed the 'obscene' behavior of the troop members, also having seen
> British groups perform at Loyola College, Samandha Mudaliyar initially did
> not have a very noble impression about Tamil theatre or its agents. As a
> teenager seeing Stree Saagasam, by Sarasa Vinodhini Sabha he drafts his own
> Tamil adaptation under the title Pushpavalli and forms his own sabha to
> perform it with. The esteemed members of the sabha then, beside himself were
> the seven members; U. Muthukumarasami Reddiyar, V. Venkatakrishna Naidu, T.
> Jayarama Nayakar, G. E. Sampat Reddiyar, and Subramanya Pillai. The
> enthusiastic youngsters approached the esteemed citizens of the city
> including Diwan Bahadur Paakam Rajarathna Mudaliyar who demanded 'what is
> the use of such groups? What does the nation have to gain from them?' to
> which Samandha Mudaliyar angrily retorts 'Why don't ask this to the great
> poet Shakespeare?' and walks out. He later not only convinces Mudaliyar to
> become his prime patron but also marries his daughter. The forerunner to
> Suguna Vilas Sabha was Oriental Dramatic Society which was run by Brahmins
> of the city but which soon its operations and existed only in name. When
> Samandha Mudaliyar recruited Rangasami Iyengar into his group there were
> frantic efforts to revive the former and woo Iyengar into their folds, an
> effort that did not succeed. He distinguishes those who have to resort to
> theatre as an income generating profession and therefore have to resort to
> all sorts of obscenity to satisfy the gallery as opposed those of his kind
> who are in theatre for the development of the art field and usage of theatre
> as a forum to educate the people. In this endeavor several political and
> cultural elite of Chennai supported him. Beginning his rendezvous with
> theatre at a very young age of 18 Samandha Mudaliyar went on script 94
> plays. He acted in most of them, not necessarily in the lead role. His huge
> report ire includes adaptations of Shakespeare, Kalidas and French classics.
> Many of his scripts were filmed often while being performed on stage at
> Victoria Public Hall like the second talkie of Tamil cinema, Galaba Rishi
> [1932]. A.V.M Chettiyar found his gold mine by filming Mudaliyar's
> Sabhapathi [1941]. Mudaliyar himself directed Sati Sulochana and Manohara,
> which was later, modified to suite the purposes of the Dravidian party.
>
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