PALO ALTO: The United Amateur Artistes (UAA) staged their 61st production “Venkata 3” on June 16 at Palo Alto. The play was hosted by Abhirami fine arts and Akshaya USA. United Amateur Artistes, the oldest among Tamil Theatre groups active today, was founded in 1952 by the Tamil theatre late Sri. Y. G. Parthasarathy.
The play, which explores the issue of cloning, revolves around the protagonist Venkatadhri, who is torn between his family, work and passion for scriptwriting, and agrees to create two clones in order to balance his professional and family life. The ensuing confusion as a result of the cloning was backed with strong performances from the cast.The science comedy was filled with one-liners and had theatre veteran Y. Gee Mahendran play the protagonist.
The show was significantly different, because all the actors, except YGM were from Triveni Arts, Chicago. “Generally, I travel with my own cast to stage plays in different countries. Teaming up with a Chicago-based group was an experiment,” says Mahendra. The group effectively used tele-conferencing and skype-based video calls helped members put the act together. “I was amazed at how the team pulled it off in a very short time,” exclaims Mahendra.
The proceedings of show is to benefit Akshaya USA and Care for Children. Akshaya is committed to helping the helpless, homeless, sick, elderly, mentally ill and destitute in Madurai, India by providing healthy food, care, and opportunity to rehabilitate in order to restore human dignity.
Akshaya’s founder Narayanan Krishnan was recognized as one of the World’s Top Ten Heroes of 2010 by CNN. In 2003, he began to serve freshly cooked meals, and has since served over 1.7 million meals as of August 2011.
Care for Children, a program of the Art of Living Foundation, partners with rural and tribal areas primarily in India and other underdeveloped countries, to establish schools and other educational infrastructure.
Uma Venkat and her team, organizers of the show, thanked the audience and sponsors for making the event a grand success and helping for a great cause.
Vidya Sethuraman
India Post News Service
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