BANGALORE: Mariyude Diary (Marie’s Diary), a play based on Madam Curie’s life and works, by Kelappaji Memorial Vocational School, Kodakkad, Kasargod, Kerala, was chosen at the South India Science Drama Festival to represent the region at a national level drama competition to be held in New Delhi soon.
‘Jala Yuddha’, a play by St Mary’s English School, Udupi, was also selected for the festival. Mariyude Diary takes the audience from an operation theatre where she appears as an angel to guide a cancer patient into remission by radiation therapy to rushes of Poland during the time of Russian domination to the discovery of radiation by scientist Marie Curie.
Seven school teams participated in the festival which was held at the Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum (VITM) in the city with the theme ‘Science through Drama’. The participating teams reached this level after having won competitions in their individual states.
“The primary objective of these dramas is to ensure that science education reaches masses. Theatre is the best way of achieving our goals,” said Shivaprasad Khened, Director, VITM.
He was speaking at the valedictory function in which Malati Sudhir, President of the Karnataka Nataka Academy was the chief guest. “We based our decision on how participants used scientific concepts in the drama and how they transformed a scientific theme into an enthralling play,” said theatre personality C Basavalingaiah. He was part of the jury.
The team for ‘Mariyude Diary’ also bagged awards for Best Direction (Ratheesan Annur), Best Scripwriting (Prakasan Karivellur) and Best Actress (Vismaya K). The script showed an innovative way in which Madam Curie discovered Radium: The three elements Uranium, Plutonium and Radium were shown as naughty urchins who try to run away from Curie who manages to capture them thus discovering Radium.