Offtrack: Surabhi; Family Drama

offtrack

India Today
October 5,1998

SURABHI
Family Drama

A theatrical clan tries to blend its 113-year-old tradition with modern themes.

By Amarnath K. Menon

Family Drama Vanarasa Govinda Rao was a showman, a leather puppeteer to be precise. Once, however, he went to see a play and came back feeling his own art was inferior to the dramatist's. He promptly turned one of his puppet shows, Keechakavada, into a play -- and met with instant success. This was way back in 1885. Rao set up a travelling theatre group and named it after his nondescript village in Andhra Pradesh's Cudappah district. Little did Rao realise that he would pass on his passion for plays to his descendants. Surviving the rough and tumble of 113 years, Surabhi's unique family tradition lives on. All roles are played by members of the Rao family.

The obsession took root. Rao's 13 children and grandchildren formed their own troupes. By 1972, Surabhi had 2,000 artistes and 46 troupes. But lean times followed as Telugu cinema and television weaned the audience away. Today, only 200 artistes and four troupes remain.

Time has wrought little change in the lives of the artistes. They travel through the countryside by bus and camp at a place for short periods. Mythologicals form the staple of their repertory, with Lav Kush, Maya Bazaar and Bala Nagamma being perennial favourites. Rural audiences throng the theatres; shell out Rs 6 and you regally recline on a chair, pay half the sum and you squat on the floor. Soon a bewitching make-believe world opens up before their eyes -- Ghatotkacha swallowing a laddu that comes flying towards him, Ganga springing up from the ground, Bhishma ascending to the heavens.

Remnants of the old-fashioned theatre linger in the troupe's garish make-up, stilted dialogues and gaudy costumes. But the presentation goes with clockwork precision, with everyone pitching in. For instance, when they need an expectant mother, there is usually one for real.

Sadly, for all its attractions Surabhi was beginning to bore the audiences. Just when it seemed that Surabhi's disbanding was imminent, organisers of the group asked acclaimed musician-director B.V. Karanth to invigorate it with new theatre techniques. A Delhi-based NGO, Alarippu, sponsored his initiative. The veteran director's task was daunting. Invited to stage Surabhi's Bhishma at the National Drama Festival in Kozhikode last year, he found the audience response an eye-opener. The striking invocation with which the play started drew prolonged applause. But the enthusiasm soon flagged.

Karanth realised the only way to salvage the group's tradition was to put it in sync with contemporary reality. He now intends to blend the old with the new. "Typical characteristics like bright costumes, glittering crowns and artistic cut-outs will, however, remain," says Karanth. The staging of modern plays, he feels, will increase the artistes' awareness and improve their dialogue delivery. Unfazed by the tepid response Bhishma received, Karanth next produced Chandi Priya. The play deals with the contemporary theme of female infanticide. It inspired the younger Surabhi members, especially the women, as it made them aware that they were as important as the male actors. The premiere of the third production Yadamma, an adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's The Good Woman of Setzuan, at a packed auditorium in Hyderabad recently has proved that it has gone down well with the urban audience. Karanth is confident that it will do equally well in the countryside.

For the artistes, life is tough though. They are paid a paltry Rs 1,500-2,000 a month. Rising costs threaten the very existence of the troupes. Says Surabhi's adviser Garimella Ramamurty: "We will be forced to ask them to leave if we don't get enough financial support." But the fact that Surabhi has survived for so long speaks volumes for the resilience of Rao's successors. The organisers and artistes are highly enthused. "We have to make modern plays appealing to rural audience," says R. Swapna, a young member of the clan. An impressed Karanth equates Surabhi's actors to "uncut diamonds". With someone like him to smoothen out the rough edges, the group is bound to regain its former glory. And keep that leather puppeteer's legacy alive.

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