Telugu Historyతెలుగు చరిత్ర

Telugu theatre and early cinema

How the modern Telugu stage began in the 1880s, after touring Marathi and Parsi companies showed a new kind of play: the first drama societies of Bellary, Rajahmundry and Madras, the verse plays of Dharmavaram Ramakrishnamacharyulu and Kolachalam Srinivasa Rao, the family theatre of the Surabhi companies, famous actors, plays banned for their politics, and the move to the cinema after Bhakta Prahlada (1932).

The modern Telugu stage was born in the 1880s. Touring companies from western India showed Telugu audiences plays with painted scenes, music and costumes.12 Within a few years, drama societies had sprung up in many Telugu towns.32 This page follows that stage from its beginning to the arrival of the Telugu cinema. For the older plays of the village and the temple, see Telugu folk arts and Kuchipudi and Perini.

A new kind of play

P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao wrote in 1928 that the modern Telugu drama came from three sources. These were the plays of Shakespeare, “often enacted in India”, the visit of the “Dharvada Nataka Company”, and the Parsi theatre.4 N. Gangappa, writing in the monthly Bharati in 1968, gives more detail. English officers staged English plays in the big cities, and invited educated Indians and rajas to watch.56 Then, around 1880, a Marathi company came from Dharwar to the Telugu country. People called it “the Dharwar company”, though Gangappa says it did not really belong to Dharwar.1

At Vizianagaram, P. T. Raju says, Maharaja Ananda Gajapati started a Sanskrit Dramatic Association after seeing the Parsi companies. It ended with his death.7 The first Telugu plays of the new kind were translations from Sanskrit and English. Raju names Kokkonda Venkataratnam’s Narakasura Vijayam as the first translation to be printed.74 Kandukuri Veeresalingam staged his Ratnavali, from Sanskrit, and a Telugu Comedy of Errors in 1880.8

The first drama societies

At Bellary, some people held that only Kannada was fit for the stage. The lawyer Dharmavaram Ramakrishnamacharyulu set out to prove them wrong.18 He wrote his Chitranaliyam in Telugu and staged it in 1886, and became known as the “grandfather of Telugu drama”.1 He founded the Sarasavinodini Sabha, which Gangappa calls the first drama company of the Telugu country.8

His rival in the same town was another lawyer, Kolachalam Srinivasa Rao, with his Sumanorama Sabha.829 Raju calls Kolachalam’s Vijayanagara Rajya Patanam (“the fall of Vijayanagara”) the first Telugu historical play.10 Chenchiah praised it as a real tragedy, a kind of play rare in India.11

Other societies followed in the towns:32

  • the Chintamani Nataka Samajam at Rajahmundry
  • the Jaganmitra Nataka Samajam at Visakhapatnam, under the patronage of Maharaja Vikrama Deo Varma
  • the Hindu Nataka Samajam of Rajahmundry and the Hindu Samajam of Guntur
  • the Hindu Theatre of Machilipatnam and the Andhrabhimana Samajam of Nellore
  • the Suguna Vilasa Sabha of Madras, founded in 189132

These companies took a great deal from the Parsi stage. Gangappa lists glittering costumes, glass lamps, bright colours, painted curtains and side wings.2 Telugu playwrights also copied the style of the Parsi songs.2 Raju notes that each society had its own playwright, who wrote parts to suit the actors it had.3

The plays

Most plays told stories from the Puranas (old sacred stories).4 Chenchiah notes that Dharmavaram’s Chitranaliyam “has had a great run”.4 Other popular verse plays, listed by Raju and K. Sitaramaiya, include these:1012

Social plays were written too.4 Gurajada Apparao’s Kanyasulkam mocked the sale of young girls in marriage to old men. Raju calls it the first important social drama in Telugu.10 Veeresalingam’s light farces laughed at social follies.11

Sitaramaiya wrote in 1943 that the place of music in drama was still not settled, and that the cinema had made it harder. Some held that music was the heart of drama, and song had crowded out the story and the characters.13

Actors and audiences

P. Raghunadha Rao names Tadipatri Raghavacharyulu, known as Bellary Raghava, as the finest actor of the age.14 He also names Sthanam Narasimha Rao and D. V. Subba Rao as famous actors.14 Sthanam won his name in women’s parts.2 Even Tanguturi Prakasam acted in plays.152

In 1929 the Andhra Nataka Kala Parishat was founded, and Gangappa calls this a milestone for the Telugu stage.2

The Surabhi companies

The Surabhi theatre began with a family of leather-puppet players of the Aare community, who toured the Bellary, Anantapur and Kadapa country.1617 In 1885 two landlords of the village of Sorugu asked them to play a puppet show at a wedding. On the advice of Vanarasa Govinda Rao, they acted the story as a play instead.18 The landlords then gave them a house, and the families took the village’s new name, Surabhi, as their own.19

Raju describes the Surabhi companies as touring companies whose members all belonged to one family, with both men and women on the stage.3 Gangappa says that before them men played the women’s parts. After the Surabhi companies came, the Telugu stage followed their example.2 By 1910 the family had split into several units that toured different regions.20

Plays and politics

Bhargavi Kaveti points to the Dramatic Performances Act of 1876, which the British passed to stop plays that spread dissent. She says playwrights then hid their political messages inside stories from history and the epics.21 Kolachalam’s play on the fall of Vijayanagara was banned by the British government, according to Y. Sitarama Sarma, because it showed a Hindu–Muslim conflict.9

From 1942 to 1946 the Communists staged plays such as Mundadugu through their people’s theatre movement, the Praja Natya Mandali.22 Maa Bhoomi (“our land”) showed the Telangana peasants’ fight against the landlords, and was banned for a time.22

From the stage to the screen

The first Telugu talkie, Bhakta Prahlada, came out in 1932. Kaveti says it was directed by H. M. Reddy and shot at Calcutta.23 Its heroine was Surabhi Kamala Bai, an actress of the Surabhi stage.23 Other Surabhi artists also went into films as actors and musicians.23 Kaveti quotes M. Nagabhushana Sarma’s history of the Surabhi theatre for one more branch, from Balakonda in northern Telangana. Several of its members went to Bombay in the 1930s to work in the new cinema.16

By 1943 Sitaramaiya could note that the talkie had taken the place of the silent film.24 The national film awards show Telugu films being made by companies at Madras. In the awards of 1957, Tenali Ramakrishna, by Vikram Productions of Madras, won the President’s Silver Medal for the best Telugu film.25 In 1958 two more Telugu films of Madras companies, Bhagya Rekha and Todi Kodalu, won certificates of merit.26

The cinema took the audience away from the stage.22 Kaveti says the Surabhi companies moved to the villages in the 1930s and 1940s, and only a few old favourites still drew crowds.2023 Raghunadha Rao writes that after 1956 few good plays were written. Writers turned to film stories and novels, and the Telugu stage slowly declined.22

Where the sources disagree

How many plays. Raju says Dharmavaram wrote nearly thirty plays, of which about thirteen were printed.310 Gangappa gives twenty-eight.8 For Kolachalam, Raghunadha Rao gives thirty plays, while Gangappa and Sitarama Sarma give twenty-eight.1529

When the Surabhi stage began. Kaveti dates the first Surabhi play to 1885.18 Elsewhere she says the company toured Rayalaseema “during the period of 1860–1900”.27

The first Telugu talkie. Kaveti dates Bhakta Prahlada to 1932 and says it was shot at Calcutta.23 The Silver Jubilee Souvenir of the Indian talkie (1956) says it was made in 1931, at the Krishna Movietone studio in Bombay.28 The film almanac of 1953 also says H. M. Reddy made it for the Krishna Movietone in 1931, and Kodavatiganti Kutumbarao gives 1931 as well.2930 For more, see The early Telugu talkies.

Footnotes

  1. Gangappa, Bharati (March 1968), p. 39 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  2. Gangappa, Bharati (March 1968), p. 41 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12

  3. Raju, Telugu Literature (1944), p. 72 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  4. P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao, A History of Telugu Literature (1928), p. 114 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  5. N. Gangappa, “Andhra Nataka Rangasthalamupai Paschatyulayu, Parsilayu Prabhavamu” (“Western and Parsi influence on the Telugu stage”), Bharati, Vol. 45, No. 3 (March 1968), p. 37 (in Telugu) (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩

  6. Gangappa, Bharati (March 1968), p. 38 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩

  7. P. T. Raju, Telugu Literature (Andhra Literature) (Bombay: International Book House, 1944), p. 71 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

  8. Gangappa, Bharati (March 1968), p. 40 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  9. Y. Sitarama Sarma, “Ki. Se. Kolachalam Srinivasa Rao”, Bharati, Vol. 41, No. 10 (October 1964), p. 58 (in Telugu) (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  10. Raju, Telugu Literature (1944), p. 73 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  11. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao (1928), p. 115 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  12. K. Sitaramaiya, A Hand Book of Telugu Literature (Hyderabad: Hyderabad Telugu Academy, 1943), p. 71 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

  13. Sitaramaiya, Hand Book of Telugu Literature (1943), p. 72 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩

  14. Raghunadha Rao, Adhunika Andhrapradesh Charitra (1997), p. 332 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

  15. P. Raghunadha Rao, Adhunika Andhrapradesh Charitra (New Delhi: Sterling, 1997), p. 331 (in Telugu) (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

  16. Kaveti, “Surabhi Drama” (2020), p. 113 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

  17. Kaveti, “Surabhi Drama” (2020), p. 115 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩

  18. Kaveti, “Surabhi Drama” (2020), p. 116 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

  19. Kaveti, “Surabhi Drama” (2020), p. 117 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩

  20. Kaveti, “Surabhi Drama” (2020), p. 119 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

  21. Bhargavi Kaveti, “The Stage Craft of Surabhi Drama: History and Evolution”, Kakatiya Journal of Historical Studies, Vol. XV, No. 1 (2020), p. 112 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩

  22. Raghunadha Rao, Adhunika Andhrapradesh Charitra (1997), p. 333 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  23. Kaveti, “Surabhi Drama” (2020), p. 120 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  24. Sitaramaiya, Hand Book of Telugu Literature (1943), p. 101 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only. ↩

  25. India 1958: A Reference Annual (Delhi: Publications Division, 1958), p. 586, film awards of 1957 for films of 1956 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  26. India 1958: A Reference Annual (1958), p. 587, film awards of 1958 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  27. Kaveti, “Surabhi Drama” (2020), p. 118 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only. ↩

  28. “Telugu Film”, unsigned article in Indian Talkie, 1931–56: Silver Jubilee Souvenir (Bombay: Film Federation of India, 1956), p. 91 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  29. Indian Motion Picture Almanac (1953), p. 378, Who’s Who, “Reddy, H. M.” (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  30. Kodavatiganti Kutumbarao, “Telugu chitralu: simhavalokanam” (“Telugu films: a look back”), Andhra Prabha, 1 October 1953, in Cinema Vyasalu, Vol. 1 (Viplava Rachayitala Sangham, 2000), p. 171 (in Telugu) (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩

People

Dharmavaram Ramakrishnamacharyulu

1853–1913 CE

Dharmavaram Ramakrishnamacharyulu (1853–1913) was a lawyer of Bellary who wrote and acted in plays, and is called Andhra Nataka Pitamaha, the grandfather of Telugu drama. His Chitranaliyam (1886) began the age of original Telugu plays on the stage, and his Sarasavinodini Sabha was one of the first Telugu drama companies.

Kolachalam Srinivasa Rao

1854–1919 CE

Kolachalam Srinivasa Rao (1854–1919) was a lawyer of Bellary and one of the two founders of the modern Telugu stage. His play on the fall of Vijayanagara, banned by the British, made him Andhra Charitra Nataka Pitamaha, the father of Telugu historical drama; he wrote about twenty-eight plays and an English history of world drama.

Bellary Raghava

1880–1946 CE

Tadipatri Raghavacharyulu, known as Bellary Raghava, was the most famous actor of the early Telugu stage. He made his name in the plays of Kolachalam Srinivasa Rao at Bellary, played Shakespeare's Othello and Shylock in English, and was praised by Rabindranath Tagore.

Chittoor V. Nagaiah

before 1973 CE

Chittoor Vuppaladadiyam Nagaiah (died 1973), stage actor, singer and freedom-movement worker from Chittoor district, became one of the first stars of Telugu cinema. He entered films in Gruhalakshmi (1938), was the hero and composer of Vauhini's first films, played the saint-poets Potana, Vemana and Tyagaraja, and directed Thyagayya (1946). He received the Padma Shri in 1965 but died poor.

Vanarasa Govinda Rao

Vanarasa Govinda Rao was the adopted son of a family of leather-puppet players who persuaded them, in 1885, to act a story on the stage instead of showing it with puppets. From that play grew the Surabhi theatre, run by one family with women playing women's parts. The Surabhi companies keep his death anniversary, 19 December, as Surabhi Day.

References

Sources (11)
  1. P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao, A History of Telugu Literature (The Heritage of India Series) (opens in a new tab), Association Press (Y.M.C.A.), Calcutta / Oxford University Press, London, 1928, pp. 114–115. [Public domain]
  2. P. T. Raju, Telugu Literature (Andhra Literature) (The P. E. N. Books, The Indian Literatures, No. XV) (opens in a new tab), International Book House, Bombay, for the P. E. N. All-India Centre, 1944, pp. 71–74. Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]
  3. K. Sitaramaiya, A Hand Book of Telugu Literature (opens in a new tab), Hyderabad Telugu Academy, Hyderabad (Deccan), 1943, pp. 70–72, 101. Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]
  4. P. Raghunadha Rao, Adhunika Andhrapradesh Charitra (ఆధునిక ఆంధ్రప్రదేశ్ చరిత్ర), Telugu version of History of Modern Andhra Pradesh (opens in a new tab), Sterling Publishers, New Delhi, 1997, pp. 331–333. Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]
  5. K. Purushotham (article); Thallapally Manohar (ed.), Kakatiya Journal of Historical Studies, Vol. XV, No. 1 (2020), incl. K. Purushotham, 'From Social Reform to Dandora: A Critical Perspective of Telugu Dalit Short Stories in Historical Outline', pp. 1-11 (opens in a new tab), 2020, pp. 112–123. Bhargavi Kaveti, 'The Stage Craft of Surabhi Drama: History and Evolution', pp. 111–123. Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]
  6. Research and Reference Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India 1958: A Reference Annual (opens in a new tab), Publications Division, Delhi, 1958, pp. 586–587. [Public domain in India]
  7. N. Gangappa (article), Bharati (భారతి), Vol. 45, No. 3 (March 1968), incl. N. Gangappa, 'Andhra Nataka Rangasthalamupai Paschatyulayu, Parsilayu Prabhavamu' (Western and Parsi influence on the Telugu stage), pp. 37–42 (opens in a new tab), 1968, pp. 37–41. Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]
  8. Y. Sitarama Sarma (article), Bharati (భారతి), Vol. 41, No. 10 (October 1964), incl. Y. Sitarama Sarma, 'Ki. Se. Kolachalam Srinivasa Rao', pp. 57–60 (opens in a new tab), 1964, pp. 58. Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]
  9. Film Federation of India, Indian Talkie, 1931-56: Silver Jubilee Souvenir (opens in a new tab), Film Federation of India, Bombay, 1956, pp. 91. [Public domain in India (photographs and unsigned matter); signed articles cite only]
  10. I. K. Menon and S. G. Chandavarkar (compilers), Indian Motion Picture Almanac and Who's Who, 1953 (opens in a new tab), Film Federation of India, Bombay, 1953, pp. 378. [Public domain in India (directory and unsigned matter); signed articles cite only]
  11. Kodavatiganti Kutumbarao; Krishnabai and Prasad (eds.), Cinema Vyasalu, Vol. 1 (Vyasa Prapancham 4) (in Telugu) (opens in a new tab), Viplava Rachayitala Sangham, Andhra Pradesh, 2000, pp. 171. Cite-only; paraphrased. [Cite only]

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