Celebrate the stage

Today is the World Theatre Day, a day of celebration for those who see the value and importance of theatre as an art form. These celebrations were instituted in 1962, but celebration of theatre has been going on in this venue since at least 1906. That was the year when Suguna Vilas Sabha staged their play Kaadalar Kangal here. Pammal Sambandha Mudaliar, the founder of Suguna Vilas Sabha and a pioneer of Tamizh theatre, introduced the 'evening show' to the Madras audience here. That was quite a change from the then prevalent practice of having plays between late night and early dawn; the revised timings attracted the 'family audience' which Sambandha Mudaliar's works catered to.

But those were not the only ones. Shakespeare (how can one forget the bard on this day!) would have found it difficult to follow the dialogues in Jwalita Ramanan or Vannipurathu Vanigan even as he recognised their plots. For the actors got on stage to speak in Tamizh; and Jwalita (Juliet), Ramanan (Romeo), Shylock, the vanigan (merchant) of Vannipuram made their way into the populace of Madras. 

It might look very unlike a drama theatre now; but as it gets restored fully, one hopes this stage at the Victoria Public Hall will be able to host a show or three on one of the World Theatre Days this decade!

 

Across the road

This is not a spot from which one can usually take pictures. The Victoria Public Hall is under renovation (that's one thing that does not seem to change over the years) and there are restrictions on public entry into that building. We had managed to get permission to go in and walk along demarcated areas; one such was the verandah on the first floor. 

It is nice to see the lawns outside and think of the possibilities of how this can be a great public performance venue once the renovation is complete. 

Are you able to identify the building across the road n this picture? If you have guessed it to be Siddique Sarai, you are absolutely correct!

 

Newness!

Have you been to Chennai recently? If you haven't, then you may not know about the changes around the Chennai Central Station. The Central Square of Chennai, which is supposed to come up around the station, has started showing signs of progress. Some buildings near the station - Victoria Public Hall and Ripon Building - have had space in front of them cleared and you can get a far better sense of the grandeur of these buildings than you could earlier. 

There is still a lot of work going on around the place. The Chennai Metro still has a lot of digging and shaping to do. There is talk of a massive underground car park. The Central Square of Chennai, when it is complete, would have other buildings (the Southern Railway Headquarters, the Moore Market Complex, the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital and of course, the Chennai Central Station itself) contained in its 8-acre spread. There will be other heritage buildings - or, as in the case of the Ramaswamy Mudeliar Choultry, just a vestige marking the spot - around this square. 

It would take a few years to be complete, but I hope all of this will not only provide open space for the people to chill (there are quite a few doing so these days anyway) but will also bring back the Victoria Public Hall as a performance space. From the outside, it looks much better than I remember it anytime over the past 15 years; but the inside is still very crumbly. One looks forward to taking in a show, or a lecture, at this hall before... well, 2028? 

 

Last light?

Heard that work on renovating the Victoria Public Hall has begun. Look forward to the first meetings there soon - wonder if the coloured glass panes will remain in place!

Grateful for other reasons?

This defunct fountain in front of the Victoria Public Hall proclaims the city's gratitude to a former governor not once but three times, going by the plaques on each of the three faces of the centrepiece. Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan, who is so honoured, was the Governor of Madras for just a short while, from March 1859 to May 1860. Even in that short stint, he did enough for him to be held dear by the citizens of Madras.

For starters, he made land ownership easier, bringing in reforms that allowed freehold titles to be bought. He is also credited with conceptualizing the People's Park; a 116-acre garden spread which had over 5 miles of road inside it, meandering around 11 ponds, a bandstand, tennis courts, a public bath and a very basic zoo. It is for this that he is remembered: the plaques say "...to whom Madras is indebted for The Peoples Park".

But there's a lot more that Trevelyan needs to be remembered for. When he was governor of Madras, his council and he disagreed with a proposal for taxation drawn up by the Financial Member of the Legislative Council for India. And he made his disagreement public, by sending an open telegram to Calcutta and later, by releasing (or allowing the release of) the minutes of a Council meeting where the opposition was recorded. Though he was censured and recalled to England for this action, he was vindicated and returned to India in 1862 as the Financial Member! In the interim, he crafted the principles which guided the creation of the Indian Civil Service. With so much to his credit, one guesses that the city's gratitude stemmed from something more than Trevelyan's civic sensibility!

Public place

Madras celebrated Queen Victoria's golden jubilee in 1887 by raising two public buildings. Sadly, neither of them is in popular use today, but the Victoria Public Hall, in the photograph, is at least accessible and is used by a set of people belonging to the South Indian Athletic Association. Designed for use by the public at large, it has seen a fair number of gatherings, both public and private, under its roof. With a combined seating capacity of almost 1500, split across two levels, Victoria Public Hall was used for balls, stage performances and public meetings; all one had to do to hire the Hall was to persuade the board of trustees managing its affairs that the purpose was related to "moral, social and intellectual welfare" or was "rational recreation".

The building still looks grand from the outside, but the core is rotten. The stairs leading up to the first floor threaten imminent collapse, while the ones going up the tower have already carried out that threat. Designed by Robert Fellowes Chisholm - who had also designed other grand buildings like those of the College of Arts and Crafts, the Senate House of the University of Madras and the Chennai Central Railway Station - and built by Namberumal Chetty, the masonry of the building looks sturdy enough to spring back to life. If you take a look through the open windows, you can see the coloured glass panes above the inner doors, giving you a hint of how wondrous it must have been in its heyday.

Maybe those days might yet come back, with the Corporation of Chennai having taken over this property from the board of trustees. Though they have brought down the perimeter wall - and the old sign saying "Victoria Town Hall", I hope they will restore this building in such a way as to open it up again for public performances!

This is my 500th post about Chennai (Madras) on this blog!