Theatre fete to honour thespian
K.K. GOPALAKRISHNAN
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Rangachetana will conduct a three-day festival to commemorate the birth anniversary of G. Sankara Pillai.
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THESPIAN AND TEACHER: G. Sankara Pillai.
As part of their year-long Silver Jubilee celebrations and to honour their founder-patron, the late G. Sankara Pillai, Rangachetana, a theatre group in Thrissur, will conduct a three-day festival of his select plays at Regional Theatre of the Kerala Sangeeta Nataka Akademi from June 22. June 22 is the 75th birth anniversary of the late thespian.
Nine plays to be staged
Plays for children such as `Gurudakshina,' `Ummakki,' `Oru Koottam Urumbukal' and `Pushpakireedam' are among the nine plays that will be staged. One of his celebrated works, `Karutha Daivathe Thedi' (In search of the Black God) will also be staged. `Avatharanam Branthalayam,' `Moonnu Pandithanmarum Paretanaya Oru Simhavum,' `Sabarmati Dooreyanu' and `Ekaki' are some of the other plays that will be presented during the festival.
Nine theatre groups from Kerala, including Rangachetana, will present the plays, which will be directed by nine directors. G. Sankara Pillai, considered the father of modern theatre in Kerala, started his career as a school teacher in 1952. Then he joined Pathanamthitta Catholic College as a lecturer of Malayalam.
In those days, folk traditions of Kerala, especially folk songs, interested him and he did in-depth research on the topic, and this later helped him a lot in his approach to theatre.
In 1977, after serving in a variety of institutions such as Gandhigram Rural Institute, Malayalam Lexicon and Sasthamkotta Devaswom Board College, Sankara Pillai joined Calicut University's School of Drama. He was the institution's first director. In 1988 he moved to M.G. University in Kottayam as Director of School of Letters.
`Snehadoothan,' written in 1957, was his debut play. Pillai wrote about 75 plays, including one-act plays, street plays and plays for children. `Malayala Nataka Sahitya Charitram' is another famous work by this maestro, who was also a Gandhian. He was the artistic director of Rangaprabath. Not only did he direct plays, he was also an author.
Little theatre
It was Sankara Pillai who initiated the `Little Theatre Movement' of Kerala, through the formation of Prasadhana Little Theatre in 1960. He was Chairman of the Kerala Sangeeta Nataka Akademi and associated with several national institutions such as the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Performing Arts, in various capacities. G. Sankara Pillai inaugurated Rangachetana, on February 11, 1980. Rangachetana began its year-long Silver Jubilee celebrations this February with a five-day theatre festival.
The celebrations will be on till February next. The theatre group organises monthly programmes as part of the celebrations.
In March, a festival of films on theatre was organised, followed by a three-day workshop on puppetry in April and a 10-day children's theatre workshop in May. For the last four years, Rangachetana has also been conducting Sunday theatre workshops.
"Through this festival, billed as `G. Sankara Pillai Natakolsavam,' we are trying to pay homage to a thespian who re-structured the whole concept of theatre in Kerala and inaugurated our venture two-and-a-half decades ago," says E.T. Varghese, president of Rangachetana.
Every year, since Pillai's demise on January 1, 1989, Rangachetana has been conducting programmes on January 1 and a memorial lecture on June 22. This year Dr. N. Radhakrishnan, honorary Ambassador of Soka University of America and chairman of Indian Council for Gandhian Studies, will deliver the G. Sankara Pillai memorial lecture and Sukumar Azhikode will inaugurate the theatre festival.
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