BENGALURU: It’s rare for stage characters to garner the kind of fervent adoration usually reserved for film superstars. Yet, Kalla, a standout character in the cult-classic Kannada play Sadarame, achieves just that. Originally portrayed by Gubbi Veranna – a pioneer of Kannada theatre and cinema – the role is now being revived by his granddaughter, veteran thespian, actor, and playback singer B Jayashree, who is also the director, in today’s performance at Ranga Shankara, JP Nagar.
“This [Sadarame] was a very popular company play. Whenever the company struggled to generate revenue, they would bring back this play, and it would always be a huge success. The story that the play tells is universal; it resonates with people. So, even though it was first staged years before I was even born, it’s very relevant today,” Jayashree shares, adding that she decided to revive the play in the early 2010s at fellow actor Arundathi Nag’s urging.
“Aru [Arundathi Nag] called me up and told me she was organising a company theatre festival and wanted me to perform a play from the Gubbi company. We considered various options, including Dashavathara and Akka Mahadevi. However, various difficulties, including cost and casting, prevented us from seriously entertaining those ideas. So, Aru suggested I do Sadarame instead. But that posed a different problem – where would I find someone to replace Gubbi Veeranna as Kalla? Aru said, ‘Why don’t you do it yourself?’,” she adds.
Taking on the role of Kalla was not a decision that the 73-year-old made lightly. The pressure of living up to her grandfather’s legacy, and her desire to honour it without any blemishes, weighed heavily on her. “I’m proud to say that people recognise me for my work first and as Veeranna’s granddaughter afterward. I didn’t want to perform a role that my grandfather had done and potentially put a black spot on his legacy if I messed it up,” she explains.
Despite Nag’s persistence, alongside moral support from friends and family, including Jayashree’s mother GV Malathamma, she wasn’t convinced. “But when someone I knew, called me up and said, ‘Don’t make such a mistake. Don’t try to blemish Veeranna’s legacy,’ something changed. I got angry and thought to myself, ‘I have been in theatre for so long, how can I bring blemish to this play?’ So, I took it as a challenge, but I was still very afraid,” says Jayashree.
Nevertheless, when she finally stepped on the stage for the first time as Kalla, the audience’s reception laid to rest all her fears. “Me, as a woman, playing a character, played by Gubbi Veeranna, was an unenviable feat. Facing the audience was more difficult than actually essaying the role. The first time I got on stage was incredible; something I hadn’t experienced in my career until then. The way the audience accepted me, first reluctantly and later wholeheartedly... My mother told me that she felt like she was watching her father on stage,” she shares.
Meanwhile, the oral tradition of the Gubbi company meant there wasn’t any written script for Jayashree to follow. “I sat down with my mother, Dingri Nagaraj, and Paramashivanna. The three would recollect the play from memory, while I would write it down, and that’s how we recreated the script. The original play had nearly 500 songs!
We couldn’t hope to perform it at that scale, so we edited the script to bring the number of songs down to 10-15 and limit the length to around 2 hours,” she shares.
The play also serves as a nostalgic journey back to the good old days of company theatre. “We have ensured that it is as faithful to the original in terms of set design, costumes, and so on. Thus, it’s got a rolling background with beautiful landscapes. If you needed a road for a scene, with these backgrounds, you could set them in a road in Russia! One might wonder, what’s the need for it? But that’s the appeal of this – there was no limit to imagination. Similarly, actors wouldn’t even touch each other on the stage, even if they were playing husband and wife. So, it’s a kind of trip down memory lane, showing how company theatre used to be,” adds Jayashree.
(Sadarame will be staged on April 20, 7.30pm at Ranga Shankara, JP Nagar. Tickets priced at Rs 200 at bookmyshow.com)