The Dramatic Arts : Vikatakavi Tenaliraman

Written and directed by Srirangam Rangamani and produced by R Srinavasan, Vikatakavi Tenaliraman is marketed as a purposeful play which, as the name suggests, is a compilation of the famous stories of Tenali Raman and his sharp wit.

I am going to be very honest here, like I always am and following a trend I set in my previous review I am going to point out the negatives and the number of points I will be deducting for each of them. Without further ado, here are the positives and the negatives of the play.

Direction – Srirangam Rangamani

Scene set & costumes – Padma Stage Kannan

BGM – Anand Subramanian

Make up – Kumar

Lights – Mano Lights

Sounds – BV Bhavan

Photos & videos – Malar Stills(R.Saravanan)

Production Manager – Venkat

Production – R.Srinivasan (MCA)

Cast

Dr.Giri(Tenali Raman), Kala Nilayam Chandru(Babar), Prakash(Krishna Deva Rayar), Karpagavalli(Vasudha), Mohanraj (Raja Guru), ,Ramani (Minister ), Edhayachandran (pandithar(Orissa), Ishwarya (Kali), Sandhiya(Narthaki), Lalitha (Kali varam petra narthaki), Venkat(Munivar), Veetturimiyalar( Sathyaseelan), Bharathraj(Veeran), Sathya(Veeran), Adiyensiddharth(Paniyalar , Muthayyan), Surendar(Sagodharan, Uthmaseelan)

Bharathanatyam

Lyrics – Rangamani

Music – Arcot Balagi/Dr.Giri

Singers – Svarathmika/Padma

Choreography – Shruthilaya & R.Srinivasan

What I Liked:

Before I go to the acting part of the play, I have to take a paragraph to appreciate the amazing set design and costume design by “Padma Stage” Kannan. I saw the drama from the balcony of the theaters and the whole set along with the costumes and the props still looked detailed and intricate.

While I am at the topic of props and costumes, I also have to dedicate a few sentences towards “Perambur” Kumar for his amazing work in the makeup department. The fake mustaches and beards fooled me even at arms’ length.

Before I move on to the acting, I want to appreciate two other parts of the production. The lighting, done by Mano Lights, was on point for most of the play. And I also want to appreciate a really good Barathanatyam number which was performed during the play. More on that later, though.

Coming to the acting, I am afraid that I don’t have all praises here. It is a mixed bag with performances ranging from incredible, to just plain bad. Seeing as this is the positives section I want to acknowledge two actors for their amazing performance. Prakash as King Krishnadevaraya was the best of the lot. He delivered his lines with the grace and poise of a king. The second best performance was by Dr. Giri as the titular character Tenali Raman.

A small shout out to Chandru who makes a brilliant cameo as Babur. And also an acknowledgement towards the two actors, Veetturimiyalar and Bharathraj, who played soldiers. For some reason, I ended up enjoying their performances a lot.

What Could Have Been Better:

This is a common gripe which I seem to have with many plays. Maybe it is because I come from a family of musicians or maybe it is just because I know for a fact that music can be done way better. The music and sound design was one of my biggest gripes.

The lack of music is terribly jarring because I have this habit where I hum or put sound effects during scenes, mostly unconsciously, when there is a complete lack of music when it is needed and I did it a lot for this play. The only place where there was music was during the transitions and when it was switched on accidently.

The troupe has composed a song specifically for this drama and the song by itself is pretty good, it is used during the Barathanatyam dance section and I couldn’t help but feel that it needed a bit more of a commanding voice that the soft one in which it was performed, especially during the Jathi sections.

I am removing half a point for each paragraph I complained about the music. While it may seem excessive, I do value music as one of the integral parts of the drama and the sound design wasn’t good enough or loud enough to impress.

Coming back to the dance section of the drama, the events that lead to the dance and the story behind that particular episode has nothing to do with the wit of Tenali Raman. One is left to wonder it it actually belongs in the story, because it has no actual sway on the overall sequence of the play. The whole twenty minute section involving the dance and the challenge can be removed and it would only bring down the runtime of the drama.

At two hours long, the length of the play is a bit excessive, when we take into consideration that it is a combination of separate Tenali Raman stories rolled into one play. It also doesn’t help that there is no interval in between making it seem even longer.

Putting all this together I am removing half a point. Add to all this some shoddy acting, some forgotten dialogues and also the fact that this is not an inauguration, I can’t help but remove another half a point for some prompted and forgotten dialogues form some of the minor characters.

Final Verdict:

Applying some simple math we can calculate that I have taken away 2.5 points from the play. But purely on the basis of the performance of Prakash as the King, I have to give half a point to the play.

So making the correct calculations, I give Vikatakavi Tenaliraman 3 out of 5 stars.

While not as comedic as I wanted to be, it still elicited chuckles from me a lot of times and kept me invested in the characters enough that I didn’t look away from the stage. Until next time;

Peace!!!