The only time he sits with his feet up is when his story manages to create ripples of reverberating impact, the sounds of which must be heard far and wide and deep down inside. Success is simply a collective of these memories for director KS Rajendran who, over the past three decades, has been using stagecraft for social change. His upcoming play called Agni Aur Barka, the concluding play at the Panna Bharat Ram Theatre Festival is a comment on women’s sexuality. It’s a story of complexity that reveals the entanglement of vividly felt emotional streaks by all of us.
Love, lust, anger and revenge are all intertwined in a tight knot of ambiguity. The story trails the path of Paravasu, the eldest son of the great sage Raibhya. But his magnanimity to get rains for the land, and position as chief priest is not taken too well by his own people. His cousin Yavakri, who returns home after ten years of meditation, decides to plan a plot of revenge. What follows is an unending saga of vengeance.
“The story is one that finds resonance over several life spans.
These were true at the time of The Mahabharata as they are now. What has changed in the context in which the story is prepared,” says Rajendran, a retired professor from National School of Drama. In his 66th year, he continues to teach Dramatic Literature. The year 2007 was a landmark year for him, one that he recalls with fondness. That year he had launched the New Delhi Theatre Workshop, that gave him a chance to share his comprehension of the subject with others. Teaching introduced him to newer dimensions to self which he was oblivious to earlier.
These workshops presented a cross-fertilisation of ideas that continue to benefit students as well as the master. “I function with one goal, that is to mirror back to society what it brews within itself,” he says.
This he does with the help of the body. He believes that the existential ground of performance for any stage show is the actors anatomy. For this artistes have to develop new gestures, marking a fresh visual language that connects not only across sensibilities but also geographies.
December 28, 7 pm, at Shri Ram Centre, Mandi House.