Vedike plans drama festival

bangalore: vedike, the popular theatre group headed by theatre activist c.r. simha, is organising `ranga malike,' a drama festival from october 26 and continue for 10 weeks. the plays will be staged at h.n. kalakshetra, national college, jayanagar. vedike plans to stage typical t.p.kailasam, a one man show by simha, rasarishi, based on kuvempu's life, girish karnad's agni mattu male, a mythological play.the other play planned is haavu mathu eni, based on antony shaffer's sleuth with characters played by national and state award winner h.g. dattatreya and ritwik simha. vedike was founded in 1983, and has grown into a prominent theatre institution. the insitution noticed that there has been a slight decrease in the popularity of dramas in the past five years due to the rising population, traffic congestion and changing life styles. so the institution has come out with such a novel programme to encourage theatre industry. vedike has already staged other plays like bhairavi, karna, meese bandoru and kaggataleyalli kolminchu, the kannada version of mahesh dattani's final solutions which is a search for answers to communalism. the institution hopes to draw people back to theatre through such programmes.