Sramanakam. A play on Buddha

As a part of promoting art and culture Mummineni Subbarao Sidhartha Kala Peetham organised a historical play Sramanakam on Tuesday at Sidhartha Auditorium. The play was presented by Yuva Kalavahini and Guruprasad Cultural Foundation, Hyderabad.

The Writer Dr D Vijaybhaskar normally touches one social problem in his plays to bring light in the minds of audience and make them aware on the issue. Similarly in this play ‘Sramanakam,’ Vijaya Bhaskar emphasised the atrocities on women during the period of Buddha. This is a play based on one of the happenings during the life of Lord Buddha.

The play began with the scholar’s court of Bimbisara, who ruled Magadha, and requested the scholars to prepare a theory for ‘Satyanveshana.’ Buddha spoke about his theory and the same was praised by the Kind Bimbisara. The drama deals with some of the ideologies of Buddha like non violence, love and affection towards others.

The anti group tried to pull down the Buddha’s aims. During this course Sundari also agitate against Buddha. Finally, with Buddha’s preachings, all these problems are solved and the new branch of Buddhism ‘Samanakam’ evolves.

Dr Vijaya Bhasker’s dialogues were powerful and thought provoking. Some of the artistes should have taken care of presentation, especially in rendering and modulation. Some of the main roles were acted by YK Nageswara Rao, A Sivaram Prasad, S Ramarao, KRK Murthy, N Ramarao, Dr BRK. Sastry, Meka Ramakrishna, L Lakshmi Narayana, Y Hribabu, Bhagi Sivasankara Sastry, Srija Sadhineni, Bhargavi and Surabhi Vengamamba, Rajeswari.

Technical support was rendered by S Brahmanandam (Music), Ashok Kumar (Make-up), Surabhi Santosh (sets and lighting). The play was directed by Atchutuni Sivaramprasad.