No lights and mikes! How was it then?

People usually ask me, what we actually achieve from learning art forms like classical music and dance. The achievement they are talking about is popularity and money. Money is very important for life. No argument there. But, what do we need money for? That is the question. For getting education to earn more money? For buying gold and silks? For extravagant life style? For status? Most of the people will answer these questions, yes. Remember, art forms will help you relax in the right way and make you concentrate more in your work, so that you can earn more money. Or they will help you have peace of mind when you are not able to earn the amount of money you wanted. Remember. Needs and wants are very different.

There are degrees of popularity. You may be popular inside your house, within your near and dear, within your town or city, in your state, country, or more. Learn art forms just like learning sports like cricket or shuttle cock. If you achieve, great! If you don’t, still your knowledge will remain your friend.

Natya Shastra.

After the construction of the plinth of the stage, comes the decorative part. Wooden decoration consisting of ornamental designs, animal figures like elephant, tiger etc, are done. Latticed windows are fixed in different parts of the floor. After this, a furnishing touch is given to the walls.

Air-conditioners were not available then, right? Mikes and lights were also not available! So, they have to plan perfectly so that there is enough light and air for all. There should not be too much of disturbance from outside for the viewers. Then only, the performance will have complete reach to all inside the playhouse. How did they achieve it? Let us see. The playhouse should resemble a mountain-cave and consist of two floors of different levels with small windows. Windows should be of right size and too much of wind should not blow in. It should enhance the acoustic or audio quality so that sound of musical instruments and the utterances of actors are perfectly audible.

After finishing the construction of walls the plaster work and white washing is done. Thereafter, painting work is under taken. Men, women, creepers etc are painted decoratively on the walls. All the details spoken about until now, is for the rectangular playhouse. What about square and triangular playhouses? We will see next week.

Kalki’s ‘Ponniyin Selvan’ (drama), is coming alive on stage. Historical dramas have become very rare. I had the opportunity of watching a few dramas of the great historical drama artist and movie villain ‘Manohar”. Details like fish in water, rain, mountains etc used to come alive on stage with lighting, screen drops and sound. No animation! Three hours of visual feast!