Nice depiction of Ravana in Ilankeswaran

There was a show of Tamil drama “Ilangeswaran” on Feb.14th at Narada Gana Sabha in Mylapore, Chennai. “Ilangeswaran” is a great drama which produced a great actor called R.S.Manohar. Manohar became a well known figure playing the lead role of Ravana in this epic drama. Though he expired in December 2006, the drama still sustains the viewers’ interest. Now the lead role is done by Shanmugan.

I haven’t seen Manohar. In fact, this “Ilangeswaran” is the second Tamil drama that I have ever seen till now. I had heard of the popularity of Manohar in Tamilnadu. People use to say that Manohar’s well built body, his body language and his shrilling voice were tailor-made for the role of Ravana.

I have seen some systems, which were well established by a person, falling apart or losing the shine when that person goes out of that system. For example, we can see “Lankesh Patrike”, a magazine in Kannada. This weekly tabloid was started by Lankesh. Then the paper became famous because of Lankesh, or some even say, that Lankesh became well known because of “Lankesh Patrike”. After the death of Lankesh, the tabloid paper lost its originality and eventually split into two by his son and daughter.

In this backdrop, I hesitated to go to the show of Ilangeswaran sans Manohar. But, luckily, as I hadn’t seen Manohar’ acting in Ilangeswaran, I was able to do watch the show without any prejudices. The drama captured my mind, first by its theme story and then by its technical aspect.

The proficiency of setting the stage and lights was just amazing. The usage of shadow technique on the stage screen is very innovative. The settings for the scenes of Ravana travelling under the sea, Ravana kidnapping Sita to Lanka and Hanumantha flying over sea towards Lanka were not only technically very good, but also were well received by Audience. Particularly, the scene of Hanumantha crossing the sea is just amazing. There is a separate track for the comedy relief for this otherwise serious drama. The lady, who has done the character of Sita, doesn’t have the appeal required for that character. This is one of few negative aspects in this drama.

The important aspect of “Ilangeswaran” is its story. This is the story based on Ananda Ramayana, an epic script probably written on 17th Century AD during the rule of Mysore Kings. The version of Ananda Ramayana is very much different from the original Valmiki Ramayana. In this version, Ravana is projected in good light. Sita is born to Ravana and Mandodari. But, as some astrologer predicted that new born baby Sita would bring misfortune to Lanka, she was taken to Mithila and left there only. This fact was known only to Ravana and his brothers, Vibhishana and Kumbhakarna, and his sister Shuparnaka. Mandori was unaware of this.

Meanwhile, Ravana was keeping track of Sita all through her life with the help of Mayavi. When Sita happens to come to forest with Rama and Lakshmana, Ravana was feeling with pain. Shurparnaka goes to forest just to test the integrity of Rama. Sita’s kidnapping was also done for the same reason. But, the fate wants something else, which eventually makes Rama conquering Ravana.

The story of this drama is written in Tamil by Thuraiyur Murthy. Nice depiction of Ravana makes this story very much interesting. Except that of Shurpanaka and Sita, all other actors have given commendable performance. The emotions of Bharatha and Lakshmana are well rendered by the actors. Rama looks ordinary in terms of acting. The lead character Ravana does well in acting, but lacks physically in terms of height. The actor who donned the character of Mayavi is very energetic.

Unfortunately, here I am not able to find out the names of actors in this drama, as I am new to Tamil theater field. By the by, the first Tamil drama that I had seen, is S.Ve.Sekar’s “Yaamirukka bayam en”. AIADMK’s sitting MLA Sekar gave a non-stop hilarious comedy through this drama. I would write about this experience in later posts.