It is often sad to see some of our people who have contributed greatly to the arts fall on bad days. I must agree that Prem Kumar (Peter D'Souza) has done lot for the Konkani stage. There are many who say he revolutionized the stage through innovation. In most cases, Prem borrowed creative ideas, particularly stage design, from Marathi theatre, which is far more advanced that Konkani theatre. I particularly remember once instance when I pointed out that "jacknife" stage he introduced in one of the tiatrs was an idea taken from Marathi stage. I now forget which Marathi play it was shown. Though credit must be given to him for spending lot of money to make props and other stage sets for his tiatrs. He did not have space to keep them after use as he didn't want to thrown them out. I think he kept at least some of them behind Joe Rose's father hairdressing saloon near the Sonapur Church. Another thing is that he couldn't take criticism. I may have on goanet earlier how he tried to influence me with a bottle of whisky, putting it into my desk drawer when I worked for the Free Press Journal. After a review of one his plays, he picked up a fight with me. He didn't speak to me for a long time until I bumped into him in Margoa during my visit to Goa. He invited me for lunch and I said I will join him on the condition that I pay for our lunches. Reluctantly he accepted. I knew how to deal with tiatrists. Zacharias Vaz, who wrote in Konkani, exposed Prem by writing from which Hindi movies Prem has adapted his plays. Prem's plays were not of high class but his dialogues were sharp and often witty. However, his one failing in this regard was to kept the best lines for himself. He could not like if someone said that his co-star in a play acted better than him. Despite all this, he has been a pillar on which the Konkani stage stood firm. The old breed of tiatrists is fading and its place has been taken by new onews. Konkani stage has undergone dramatic change. We need to help those tiatrists who are facing hard times financially. Just to ask, how many of these tiatrists have ever come forward to help a social cause during their peak time of their careers?
Eugene Correia ____________________________________________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta. http://new.mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [email protected] http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
