Arundhati Nag calls for Ranga Shankara theatres in every city

Hyderabad: Famous theatre artiste Arundhati Nag stressed the need for providing space like 'Ranga Shankara,' an affordable theatre, like the one in Bengaluru. This will help in theatre art thrive and bring in new talent of the younger generation into its fold.

She shared her experiences with the art form in her life during a talk ' theatre of Life' in conversation with Vanamala Viswanatha on the concluding day of the Hyderabad Literary Festival, here on Sunday.

Narrating her story and how she is inspired from the early school day in Delhi, Nag said the sudden shifting her family from Delhi to Mumbai and taking admission into a South Indian  school had made her learn the Tamil. But, despite having her roots in Maharashtra, she had to face being called a South Indian for not knowing the Marathi language, when she had joined in a school predominantly with Marathi-speaking children.

This way in every stage, she picked up new languages and acted in Hindi, English, and Marathi Theater. However, after shifting to Bengaluru along with her husband late Kannada actor-director Shankar Nag, she had to face the drought like situation as she could perform only one play in three months.

This had made her learn the Kannada language to take a plunge into the Kannada theatre art. Because "there were only a few Hindi and English plays were presented in those days, unlike in Mumbai where I had played roles in more number of plays in multiple languages," she said.

Suggesting acting theatre given ample opportunity to learn new languages, she said, the Ranga Shankara, was a dream envisioned by the actor-director Shankar Nag.

While the Karnataka government has provided land earmarked for the community purposes, it was people from different walks of life who had contributed to the establishing the facility. It was for the more than 10 years since the Ranga Shankar had been established that theatre is thriving at the facility.

She said that the main objective of the Ranga Shankar is 'A Play a Day.' This means every day there is play at the facility. This way the facility had provided space to present about 450 plays during the last year, she said.