PETals

Playing SideShow Bob

by Kamalesh Thurairajah



Kaadhalin Shakti was a 3 piece drama presentation that was slated to be performed at a wedding reception. The first 2 plays were comedy while the last one had a more serious story. Here, I featured in the last piece which was given the name Savitri and Satyavaan. I am unsure if this is a correct name for the play, as the story was about Savitri and the many men that she came across in her life and not just Satyavaan. Here, I played the narrator, and all other male characters involved in the story, while my co-actor played the role of Savitri and the narrator. Among the roles I played in this short 15 minute drama was the narrator, Aswapati (Ruler of Madra/ Savitri’s father), Dyumatsena (Satyavaan’s blind father), Satyavaan, Yama (Lord of Death), and a few other smaller roles such as the Aswapati’s minister, and Dyumatsena’s minister.

To me, acting various roles in one play was a very difficult task. As a novice actor, I feel that I don’t have the strength as an actor YET to pull this off. At first, looking at the script it seemed to be a very interesting play to me, but when I slowly started to get into it, I realized that it was rather difficult. The most difficult task for me was to develop each character's emotions. Taking Dyumatsena regaining his sight for an example, I had to develop the emotional outburst of a blind person regaining his sight within a few seconds, and mind you, this had to be done a few seconds after I played Satyavaan regaining his life. In all my previous work*, I have played single characters thus having a build up in emotions. But in this case, I was changing characters so quickly that I feel I did not strike the right notes at the right time. The only character I felt had some flow was Yama as I was allowed to try to become Yama over a few minutes. To say the truth, my mind was always preoccupied on stage thinking about things like “Who am I going to be next”, “Don’t forget to change the tone of your voice, Kamalesh”, "Don’t forget to change your posture”, “Are you speaking with the right tone right now?”. All these thoughts did definitely have an effect on me and I feel like I was not able to explore all the characters properly.

Maybe, I am not ready for this or I am too comfortable with the previous (one role) plays I have done. Or maybe I just need more time and practice. I do enjoy doing single roles where I can build up emotions within me and have climaxes and anti climaxes with my own emotions. Back to the example of Dyumatsena, the blind King; had I played the role of Dyumatsena throughout the play, on stage, I would have been able to explore the feelings and emotions of a blind person and regaining my sight would have been an ecstatic feeling for me.

However, I also wish to explain that playing multiple roles does have many interesting facets to it. The actor gets a chance to feel the story from various emotional points of view. And it really can be very challenging in an interesting way for the actor to have conversations with himself (between 2 characters). In this play, I actually did enjoy the short conversation between Dyumatsena and Aswapati. On a deeper more philosophical note, playing many characters, can be taken as a metaphor depicting the essential oneness of all existence. It is a portrayal of the same (me the actor) taking various forms in the body, mind and soul of different characters. However, this discussion is not in the scope of the report and I will not bore you further.


As an actor, it is also very important to capture and keep the audience attention during presentation, moreover when it’s a serious story. This would actually help the actor absorb energy from the audience and project it back to them through his acting. To me, there is nothing better than performing to an appreciative audience. To do so, the actor has to know the story thoroughly and be as intense as possible even at the least intense moments. As an actor I don’t know if I have achieved that, but I know I did try.

In a nutshell, I would say Savitri/ Satyavaan was a very interesting experience for me. I did not only learn many new things as an actor but the play also did teach me many new things as a person. However, I feel I did not achieve the climax or the feeling ( I cannot describe in words) when acting in this play. I believe I need more practice and experience as an actor before I can pursue such a task of playing many roles again. Maybe a more apt name for the drama would have been Savitri and Sideshow Bob.


*Kamalesh played multiple roles in Pancatantra's first project of William Buck's Ramayana in November 2003 presented to Swamiji. He essayed Dasaratha, Viswakarma, Vishnu and others in the highly exciting ensemble work of dramatising Buck's text.

Labels: report

posted by ketO9lives @ 12:27 PM