K.BALACHANDER TO START STAGE PLAYS FROM APRIL 18

Ace director K.Balachander who is come to known through his stage plays, is again entering to enact stage plays.After a thirty years of gap, the KB is once again switching over to stage plays and is going to inaugurate a new play Pournami with Delhi Ganesh, Fathima Babu and Renuka. The play is likely to be inaugurated on April 18 at a grand function either at the Chennai Music Academy or in the Mylapore Fine Arts Club. It is to be remembered that Malayalam Super Star Mohanlal has been doing stage plays which bring a lot of people drawn towards watching the stage plays. When the time for electronic media preventing the general public in entering local sabhas to watch stage plays, the sudden change in the attitude of the ace director, KB to enact stage plays will revive the habit of watching the stage plays as was done some twenty years ago by the general public.
A versatile scriptwriter, a prolific director and shrewd producer, Balachander has to his credit over 100 films and had shaped up the career of several artistes including Rajnikanth and Kamal Haasan. Considered a ‘Man with Midas Touch’, he owes everything to stage plays, from where he made his beginning several decades ago.

‘Passion and love for the theatre brought me back here. Since I was busy with my prior commitments, I couldn’t pursue my love for drama for a long time. I managed to squeeze some time for this now,’ Balachander says of his comeback.
He strongly feels that the three different medium of entertainment - theatre, cinema and television are bound to coexist. ‘One cannot destroy the other and at any given time the public will see what it wants.’

Balachander is also unfazed by sceptics to his comeback. When I ventured to do television serials, everyone discouraged me. But I proved that my decision was right with successful tele-serials and many followed suit’. So his critics better get ready to eat their words.

On the challenges involved in staging a play today considering various avenues of entertainment are available on tap, he says, ‘the content is the key. If you narrate an interesting story in a gripping manner, you will have audience. There are umpteen number of themes that can be handled for stage plays like political satire, social injustice, family drama.’

KB’s popular plays like Server Sundaram, Naanal, Ethir Neechal, Neer Kumizhi, Navagraham and Major Chandrakanth were later made into films and they were hits.

He feels that the time has come now to infuse energy into theatre and his reentry would add filip to it.