Telugu drama

The Telugu theatre (Drama in the Telugu language) is one of the most popular Art forms in India. There are many social and mythological plays performed by many eminent artists and have enthralled the audience from time to time with their magnificent performance. One of the interesting feature is the dialogue delivery by the actors. Whereas its visual language is not much familiar than that of any other regional theatres.

Kinds of Theatre

Chindu bhagavatam or yakshaganam : this is eminent Folk theatre form of Telangana state. there were thousands of scripts written for the performance of chindu. there are two major traditions in chindu Yakshaganam. one is traditional art for the sake of the cast related rituals. and the other one is occasional performances for entertainment. This tradition is being performed by chindu madigas who are dependent cast people of madiga community. chindu madigas plays the cast myths Adi jambapuranam and yellamma katha for the rituals of their cast. for entertainment they play myths folk tales and histarical subjects. chervirala Bhagayya was one of the prominent writer who wrote more than 100 yakshaganas. chindu yellamma gaddam narendar gaddam srinivas shindu shyam aresome of the prominent performers of the chindu yakshaganam.

The interesting feature in Telugu theatre is the main roles are cast by two persons and named as "okatava (first)" "rendo (the second)", for example okatava krishnudu (first krishna), rendava krishnudu (second krishna). Most of the performances start at late nights and will continue till early mornings.

The average budget of each Parishat is in the range of Rs.2.00 lakh to 3.00 lakh per year. One of interesting findings is that 50% of the funding for all the Parishats is donated by individuals from the middle and above middle class communities. This indicates not only the active community participation on Telugu Parishat theatre but also the rootedness of theatre in the region. Each theatre group is paid an average remuneration of Rs.8,000 per performance by the Parishats and on a day three plays will be staged by three different theatre groups. In total each Parishat provides performance space for nine different groups. . January to May is considered as the best time for conducting Parishats since 95% Parishats are being conducted in open-air theatre spaces. An average of 500 to 750 audience watches the Parishats at towns and cities. In contrast to this an average of 1,500 to 2,000 audiences is watching the Parishats situated in rural areas. The study has noted that in the towns, the number of audience coming to Parishats has been gradually decreasing. It is not because that the audience has lost interest, but the lack of time management and organizational problems within the Parishat systems. It has also been noted that Parishats did not reinvent their strategies along with changing times and thus have failed in generating new audiences. Thus there is an urgent need to infuse and equip Parishats such as to restructure themselves and make their existence relevant to the current societal context.

There are 175 Parishat theatre groups throughout Andhra Pradesh. Of these about 35 to 40 groups get a chance to perform in most of the Parishats, since the selection of the plays is governed by the principles of competition and elimination. The themes of the plays are often contemporary social problems connected with the middle class ethos. The set design, costumes and make up for these plays are mostly realistic and often monotonous in nature. Minimal lighting and music are used trying to create a mood for the audience. It is observed that set design, costumes, lighting and music are the four major areas which are most neglected in contemporary Parishatnatakam. Though most of the groups are conscious of this fact, they are compelled to reproduce the same old methods, since they are not exposed and trained in those fields. Even the area of playwriting saw a major downfall in terms of quality in the last three decades. It is not that the playwrights are less talented, but it is due to the constant pressure to pen a new play every year. Though a bunch of very exciting and thought provoking plays have come out in the last one decade within these problematic circumstances, they could not survive for a long time, since the Parishats seek new plays every year. Hence a strategic intervention is needed to improve the quality of plays produced in Parishats.

The other most important feature in the Telugu theatre is "Parishid Play". These Parishid plays have taken place for the improvements in Telugu theatre and lead to a realistic movement rather than the normal epic stories happened before that time. It is also considered that there were more than 66 parishids which have started from different places in Andhra Pradesh. Parishid history started from 1929 and it served merely as a platform of established actors, dramatists, and patrons met for an annual festival. Popular plays were performed and useful lectures on important topics of theatre art delivered. The parishid also established a realistic movement of Telugu theatre. As against the existing tradition of musical plays i.e. padya natakam, it pleaded for socially relevant theatre. To achieve this, it held annual competitions regarded as a touch stone of artistic excellence, insisting that only social or one-act drama within the previous five years was eligible to participate and that women should enact female roles. The time factor of 1hr is also another important factor in these parishid plays.

" Prasna" a play directed by Murali Basa at University of Hyderabad, written by Gollapudi Maruthi Rao

Popular plays

Major contributors

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, August 25, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.