Padmashri B Jayashree

Padmashri B Jayashree is in the bay area to direct 'Jasma Odan' performed with actors and crew from our theater group Nataka Chaitra. Two shows of Jasma Odan is coming up next weekend on Feb 8 and Feb 9. The play is in the tradional Gujurathi folk art 'Bhavai'. Incidentally Nataka Chaitra is celebrating its 10th anniversary. In the last ten years Nataka Chaitra has performed twenty two shows of fourteen Kannada plays.

This evening Nataka Chaitra had organized a very nice event where we got a chance to have close interaction with B Jayashree. It was a pleasant and informal setting. Jayashree madam spoke about her childhood days in Gubbi Veeranna's drama companay, her career, her times at National School of Drama and even her stint in the Rajya Sabha. The audience participated enthusiastically by asking very interesting questions to which Jayashree responded with her opinions as well as vividly describing wonderful instances in her life. She spoke about many aspects of theater including director's vision, acting techniques, differences with film acting and much more. The evening was sweetened with tea and samosa.

We are all excitedly looking forward to this stage festival next week's performance of Jasma Odan. Please do not miss this colorful folk production.

Thanks to Niveditha Kashyap for taking this nice picture.

Kannada film review: Avame Sriman Narayana

I found the movie engaging and very well made. The movie provides good entertainment without resorting to vulgarity. I give it a 'thumbs up'. As many have already noted it should have been reduced by 20 to 30 minutes and some just did not like it. So your mileage may vary.

It takes special talent to make something really silly. The maker needs to convince the audience that what (s)he created looks silly but will be entertaining and demonstrates that a lot of effort and creativity went into making it. If the audience believes this, then it is willing to suspend or entirely check out disbelief and simply enjoy the ride for as long as it lasts. I think this might explain the popularity of the latest Kannada hit film 'avane srimannarayana'. It was dubbed in four other languages and I heard that the movie is a already a hit in Telugu.

The story is a mash up of folklore, fantasy, Hollywood westerns, Tarantino-ish cinema tricks and our own good old hero worshiping stories. I hope I can use this term 'Magic realism' for the genre of this movie. The dictionary explains it as 'a literary or artistic genre in which realistic narrative and naturalistic technique are combined with surreal elements of dream or fantasy'. A scene which fits this description in the movie is the dance sequence with the drama troupe - it is dream like.

Many times you feel the hero does stunts which are ridiculously unbelievable but hey if Avengers and John Wick can do it and make money why not Rakshit Shetty?

Congratulations to the director Sachin and the entire team on the commercial success of this movie. But soon they should come out with their own style which is not heavily influenced by foreign movies.

Game of Thrones fans : What in the movie reminds you of GOT?