Random tales and storytellers

For actor/director V Balakrishnan, the Museum Theatre is an endearing symbol of the city’s theatre scene
Walking up the tall flight of stairs and through the verandah with its walls and columns that are richly embellished with floral and geometric designs, you’ll know why Museum Theatre on Pantheon Road has been patiently playing host to a horde of artistes and storytellers from around the world for over a century.Built by the British, its commodious stage has been witness to the theatre scene in Chennai stand up and tenaciously fight everything from censorship to pure artistic incompetence while at the same time watch a lot of performers take their first steps; totter, trip and yet go on to achieve greater things; and for theatre actor/director V Balakrishnan, his association with this performance space has not been any different as he remembers on the occassion of Madras Week.
“My earliest memory visiting the theatre was in October 1998 when I dropped in for a casting session of a play Ponniyin Selvan. I saw Maya Rao, who was my teacher at the National School of Drama, perform on stage; it was a heartwarming evening,” reminisces Balakrishnan, better known among his contemporaries as Bala.
Although a rare example of the Italianate style of architecture that was developed by British architect John Nash in the early 1800s, the theatre was built in the late 19th century when this style was no longer popular in England.
“Nevertheless, this colossal theatre symbolizes Chennai as it is one of the first performance spaces built on this scale by the British in a port city. Much like Fort St George, this too is an edifice symbolizing the British Raj and its architectural glory, but looking back at the cultural compendium of Chennai, this is one place where anyone who’s been an integral part of the city’s theatre scene has performed at least once,” Bala explains.
The theatre has its share of urban legends and hilarious anecdotes; and Bala shares one: “Apart from the famous ghosts of the museum, there is a funny incident I remember being told. A famous actor who is now prominent in Bollywood and Kollywood was performing here with a popular theatre group; and he was found weeping in the men’s rest room during the interval. On being questioned by a very worried director and cast (wondering whether he had received some bad news from home), he muttered, “...I was so good out there ... I was so good!”
For a form of storytelling that has evolved over the years, Bala believes that theatre in Chennai has an identity of its own. “The theatre scene in Chennai is sometimes honest and daring, sometimes scared and tepid, sometimes pretentious and ridiculous, but in the end, it’s mostly a communion,” he explains, thus reiterating why the ‘communions’ held at this semi-circular remnant of colonial rule is still an important part of Chennai’s cultural identity.