Theatre at Parthy...
My mind races back to those golden days at Prasanthi Nilayam, when we were scuttling the hostel corridor, unmindful of the breakfast or lunch or dinner, practicing for the most awaited event of our student lives – The dramatics competition.
Swami loves dramas – mind you He was the youngest playwright, director and actor in His childhood drama “Cheppinattu Chaestaaraa”. Taking inspiration from that, the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning started this very humbling and insightful competition in the year 1999 (as far as my knowledge goes). Until this time, there were only mono-acting and miming competitions, which mainly sought to bring out the individual talent in the student. But the introduction of dramatics competition went one step ahead in seeking to build more team effort in line with the Vedic injunction – “Sahana Vavathu Sahanou Bunakthu…”
The formative years of this concept of a dramatic competition saw the theatrical expression of ideas on a grosser level. The performances were based on dialogue delivery, story line, etc. However, this was not to continue for long as new expressions of ideas started taking shape. This modern theatre (so to say) emerged a more potent weapon in the hands of the artistes to showcase their ideas rather than merely their talent. The first ever experimentation with such an abstract exposition of ideas took shape in 2000 with the PG teams trying to bring forth the concept of “Tomorrow” through two very diverse presentations. One team brought out the concept of Tomorrow through a typical mainstream story line but with an abstract surrogate message. The other presentation I should admit was the first bold off-beat presentation of its kind at Parthy. The team presented the whole idea of Life through the symbol of web and intertwined incidents to prove the point that ‘tomorrow is uncertain’.
I should write here about the other group who had a surrogate message - reason being, I was a part of that team!! It was rather a very insightful lesson we learnt in our lives during that year’s dramatics competition. Our team had conceived an idea of presenting the whole concept of time using a very fascinating theory of “00:00”. For want of time and your patience!! I am not getting into the exposition of 00:00 now. But to cut the story short, our team had planned an elaborate stage setting with fantastic light effects with the understanding that we would be given free hand on the use of lights from the previous year’s experience. Then came the jolt that the rules had been changed and we were to be satisfied with just three halogen lamps. This was something that we never anticipated. The lord was preparing us to understand the meaning of “Tomorrow” even before we preached about it through our play. Imagine, we got to know about this change-in-rule just a couple of days before the final staging and we had to start from scratch. This was because, the idea we had conceived just could not be performed with just halogen lamps. You know man’s best comes only under constraints. We sat again for discussion and made the original idea surrogate and built a normal main-stream story line around it. But we told ourselves that this effort had to be one that the student community should remember for ever. And we made it. The lesson the Lord taught us through the incident was more everlasting than the satisfaction of winning the prize that year.
The next year, 2001 saw the coming-of-age of the new experimentations with theatre. With the theme “Winds of Change”, the PG teams soared newer heights in the insightful theatrical experience. The expression of ideas became more mature, laden with figurative and abstract underpinnings. Thus Modern theatre was born in Parthy. In fact that year one of the PG teams went beyond even those three halogen lamps and used only torches on stage. This evolving form of theatre chose to wield the power of ideas as against mainstream theatre that depended on powerful dialogue delivery and stage settings (not that they are any less important). It’s my duty to also appreciate the audience here who very seamlessly evolved into an intellectual lot and supported the growth of such a theatre. This new form of theatre that opened up new vistas of human imagination with an emphatic acknowledgement of man’s constant search for the meaning of life and his own role in the entire context of human existence in my humble opinion is the highest form of theatrical expression.
Swami loves dramas – mind you He was the youngest playwright, director and actor in His childhood drama “Cheppinattu Chaestaaraa”. Taking inspiration from that, the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning started this very humbling and insightful competition in the year 1999 (as far as my knowledge goes). Until this time, there were only mono-acting and miming competitions, which mainly sought to bring out the individual talent in the student. But the introduction of dramatics competition went one step ahead in seeking to build more team effort in line with the Vedic injunction – “Sahana Vavathu Sahanou Bunakthu…”
The formative years of this concept of a dramatic competition saw the theatrical expression of ideas on a grosser level. The performances were based on dialogue delivery, story line, etc. However, this was not to continue for long as new expressions of ideas started taking shape. This modern theatre (so to say) emerged a more potent weapon in the hands of the artistes to showcase their ideas rather than merely their talent. The first ever experimentation with such an abstract exposition of ideas took shape in 2000 with the PG teams trying to bring forth the concept of “Tomorrow” through two very diverse presentations. One team brought out the concept of Tomorrow through a typical mainstream story line but with an abstract surrogate message. The other presentation I should admit was the first bold off-beat presentation of its kind at Parthy. The team presented the whole idea of Life through the symbol of web and intertwined incidents to prove the point that ‘tomorrow is uncertain’.
I should write here about the other group who had a surrogate message - reason being, I was a part of that team!! It was rather a very insightful lesson we learnt in our lives during that year’s dramatics competition. Our team had conceived an idea of presenting the whole concept of time using a very fascinating theory of “00:00”. For want of time and your patience!! I am not getting into the exposition of 00:00 now. But to cut the story short, our team had planned an elaborate stage setting with fantastic light effects with the understanding that we would be given free hand on the use of lights from the previous year’s experience. Then came the jolt that the rules had been changed and we were to be satisfied with just three halogen lamps. This was something that we never anticipated. The lord was preparing us to understand the meaning of “Tomorrow” even before we preached about it through our play. Imagine, we got to know about this change-in-rule just a couple of days before the final staging and we had to start from scratch. This was because, the idea we had conceived just could not be performed with just halogen lamps. You know man’s best comes only under constraints. We sat again for discussion and made the original idea surrogate and built a normal main-stream story line around it. But we told ourselves that this effort had to be one that the student community should remember for ever. And we made it. The lesson the Lord taught us through the incident was more everlasting than the satisfaction of winning the prize that year.
The next year, 2001 saw the coming-of-age of the new experimentations with theatre. With the theme “Winds of Change”, the PG teams soared newer heights in the insightful theatrical experience. The expression of ideas became more mature, laden with figurative and abstract underpinnings. Thus Modern theatre was born in Parthy. In fact that year one of the PG teams went beyond even those three halogen lamps and used only torches on stage. This evolving form of theatre chose to wield the power of ideas as against mainstream theatre that depended on powerful dialogue delivery and stage settings (not that they are any less important). It’s my duty to also appreciate the audience here who very seamlessly evolved into an intellectual lot and supported the growth of such a theatre. This new form of theatre that opened up new vistas of human imagination with an emphatic acknowledgement of man’s constant search for the meaning of life and his own role in the entire context of human existence in my humble opinion is the highest form of theatrical expression.
posted by Solitude at 8:50 PM
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