CHENNAI: Veteran director-playwright-actor Sundaram breathed his last on Saturday morning. He was the man behind Sivaji Ganesan’s classic movies like Gauravam, Vietnam Veedu, Gnana Oli and so on. Not many know that they were initially stage plays, but later made into movies. In fact, these were staged more than 100 times each.
Sundaram entry into theatre and cinema was not a planned one. An avid fan of English classics, he started writing stories and stage plays when he was barely 13.
His stint in Tamil cinema started around the 60s and his first play Vietnam Veedu, was staged even in North Indian cities, made him popular.
Having employed with Dunlop in the early 1950s, he was associated with United Amateur Artistes (UAA) run by YG Parthasarathy. The association between the theatre group and Sundaram continued for many years. His thirst for knowledge and to come up something novel and different, was quite intense.
For instance, even a couple of years ago, he was actively involved in theatre circuit, staging Macbeth in mime, commemorating the 60th anniversary of his writing.
The play was close to his heart and was said to be a neat representation of Shakespeare’s immortal work. Interestingly, the late President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam had lauded the effort of Sundaram for the same. It was special because the troupe had to enact the verbal piece without words!
Some time ago, YG Mahendra staged Vietnam Veedu with him playing the lead role of Prestige Padmanabha Iyer, which fetched humongous response from the theatre lovers.
Obviously, Sundaram willingly agreed and gave his permission to re-enact this play on the stage! Such was his passion and commitment to theatre.
In the later years, Sundaram felt the need to reinvent himself and started adapting himself to the recent times directing family- themed dramas, besides acting in them. Some of the popular soaps in which he was a part of include Metti Oli, Marmadesam, My Dear Bootham, Krishnadasi among the few. He holds the credit of working with actors like M G Ramachandran, Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan, Agni Natchathiram Karthik and Sathyaraj.
Fondly referred to as the ‘father of social mythology’, his film Namma Veetu Deivam, starring KR Vijaya, was remade into Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. That was the first ever social mythology film in Tamil.