‘Bali: The Sacrifice’ will be staged in Bengaluru

Arundhati Raja
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Jagriti will stage the English play, Bali: The Sacrifice in Bengaluru. Written by Girish Karnad, the play is directed by Arundhati Raja and will be staged at Ranga Shankara.

Bali… is Karnad’s own English translation of his original Kannada work, Hittina Hunja, which was written especially for Leicester Haymarket Theatre, UK and opened there in 2002. The play revolves around a king, who is caught between his Jain queen and his mother, and takes you through one night of pathos, anger, laughter, unraveling barriers of caste and religious beliefs.

“Girish’s writing has always fascinated me. What I love is the way in which he turns a regular story and builds his characters around a traditional story that has its own twists. He also once said that ‘if I was to write something exactly as it is in history books, then they would not make for dramatic interest’. And, I was fascinated with Bali… as there were so many issues that kept coming out. All Girih’s women are strong, in Yayati and in Bali,” says Arundhati, who has a degree in physiology, and has been in theatre since her school days as she always wanted to do theatre,” says the director, who adds that when she directs a play, she does not “force fit any accent on the actor. There is no need for an actor to speak in a British or an American accent when on stage. Also when I direct a play, I am looking at a play from a directorial vision and stick to the script. All of our solid Indian playwrights too got their own scripts translated to English to reach out to a wider audience. If you get your characters, plot and story going through, I think it does not matter. At times, I do correct pronunciation, but not the accent.”

The director with the cast of the play
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

“When Jagdish (Raja) and I came to Bengaluru from the UK, we watched a play by Bangalore Little Theatre (BLT) in Bal Bhavan. Yes, those days this venue was used for theatre too. Post the play, BLT announced that they were looking for people to join their group and announced an audition. We were interested, auditioned, selected and even cast in their plays. In a way, my theatre journey did take off in the way I really wanted it to,” shares Arundhati, who founded the Artistes’ Repertory Theatre in 1982.

“We opened our production with One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. By then we had staged our plays in Bal Bhavan and Ravindra Kalakshetra, but One flew… opened in Chowdiah and we were the first play to open there in 1982,” adds the Arundhati, who along with Jagdish even went on to build a concrete structure for Jagriti, which nurtures and stages theatre in Whitefield.

Jagriti is built on their farmland. “We had a farm in Whitefield, where we rehearsed, but performed elsewhere, and decided to build Jagriti for theatre, and that is how this place also came into being,” says the director, who even thrived in English theatre when Kannada theatre was at its peaks in the late 80s in Bengaluru.

A still from the play
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

Comparing the days of English theatre to the past to today, when theatre in every language thrives in the city, Arundhati feels: “In the 80s, we had the whole Cantonment side. In fact, there were enough people who spoke English and we had no television at that time, even English movies that were coming out were far and few in between. Hence, people did get out of their homes to watch plays, even English plays staged by Indian actors and theatre groups. Though there were a few traditionalists who might have not liked Indians playing English plays, we had housefull shows.”

“I am Bengali, married to a Tamilian, who lived in the UK, so literally, my go to language is English. So, we could not perform in any other language. Sadly, I feel theatre in English is going down as we at Jagriti alone see less English play and a lot more in Hindi, Bengali and Tamil. Strangely, we haven’t got any Kannada productions here. Perhaps, this goes by the feeling that we do not have an audience this side of the city, but we have people coming from all over to this part of the city too.”

Bali, The Sacrifice will be staged on January 19 at 3.30pm and 7.30pm at Ranga Shankara. Open to those aged 14 years and above. Tickets on BookMyShow