Vijayawada: Condolences pour in over Jaya Prakash Reddy's demise

Vijayawada: Theatre lover, actor, director, producer and a good humanist Jaya Prakash Reddy (74) died of cardiac arrest in Guntur on Tuesday. Jayaprakash had an attachment with Vijayawada. He used to attend the drama programmes whenever he felt free without any inhibitions.

Jaya Prakash Reddy was well-known artiste in movies and he was one of the must artistes among the few character artistes in film industry. He performed in movies as comedian, villain and character actor and also with a combination of comedy and villain. Undoubtedly, he is a versatile artiste.

Before entering into movies, he was a theatre artiste and acted in a number of social and historical plays like "Manduva Logili", "Gap chup", 'Rani Samyuktha', 'one in three', 'Sai leelalu', 'Kotta Sainyam', 'vytarani', 'Raga ragini', 'Alexander'. Jaya Prakash was inspired by the action of Sunil Datt in a solo act drama "yaadein" and requested his friend and writer Pusala Venkateswara Rao to create a play with one artiste. Pusala gave him the best play 'Alexander' and the performance of Jaya Prakash Reddy was excellent.

In spite of his busy schedule in cine industry, he didn't neglect drama. He allotted Saturday and Sunday for dramas in his diary. "It is a great experience to act with Jaya Parkash Reddy and I had an opportunity to play Manduva Logili. Later, Jaya Prakash took my play 'Gup chup' to stage and fortunately that has become a way to enter into Dasari Narayana Rao film. I could not digest the news of sudden death of Jaya Prakash," said senior writer Divakar Babu while expressing condolence.

"Jaya Praksh Reddy was a committed artiste. He acted in Raga Ragini, which was directed by me and staged in Ravindra Bharathi. Weekly twice on Sunday and Saturday he attended rehearsal all the way from Hyderabad to Ponnur. He never allowed me to spend for his personal expenses including his transport and food," said YS Krishneswara Rao. He recollected another incident that in spite of high fever he acted in the play Raga Ragini in Ravindra Bharathi, Hyderabad, which shows the dedication of Jaya Prakash towards theatre.

Jaya Prakash was a very friendly natured person. He loves theatre and theatre personalities. He never bothered the age and other things for acting on stage. He called R Vasudeva Rao and a young and upcoming stage director and asked him to direct his play, which shows his interest to bring a good drama.

D Rama Koteswara Rao, theatre personality expressed his condolence for the sudden demise of Jaya Prakash and said that he had a conversation on Monday evening with JP. Another writer Bhaskara Chandra also said he was shocked on hearing this bad news.

Jandhyala award was given to Jaya Prakash Reddy for the year 2017 by Sumadhura Kala Niketan. The Parishad chairman Dr N Murali Krishna said it is a great loss to theatre and particularly to Sumadhura. The president Samantapudi Narasaraju said that Sumadhura lost a family member of Sumadhura. He recollected and said that Jaya Prakash Reddy used to attend all the three days to watch the plays and his cretinism is very much balanced. Secretary PV Bhaskara Sarma, P Suryanarayana Murthy and D Anmareswara Sarma also paid tributes to Jaya Prakash.

Madugual Rama Krishna, P Mohan Ram Prasasd, Nanidvada Nani, B Anjaneya Raju, Beta Rama Surya Praksah, J Sridhar, Mohammad Khaja, Kedar Sankar, PVD Prasad, Chandra Sekhar (New Delhi), Gadde Vara Prasad, MVB Vinayaka Sarma, Naidu Gopi, the members of Rangasthali, Narasarao Pet, B Naren, Ch Mahesh, Sri Sai Karthik Creations, Kakinada, Goparaju Vijay, Hemadri Prasasd, D Kailasa Rao, Dr GV Sarathi, R Satyanarayana Raju and many theatre lovers expressed their deep condolences to the departed friend, theatre lover Jaya Prakash Reddy.