Depicting the moral way

Well-known make-up artiste Malamachanahalli Venkateshappa selected 25 persons from various villages and transformed them into various mythological characters.

Even the close friends and families couldn’t recognise themKarna, Krishna, Narada, Dronacharya, Bhishma, Sakuni were among the characters from the Mahabharata made up by Venkateshappa using his make-up skills. The actors entered into their characters.

The characters appeared life-like straight out of the epic in the play, “Danaveera Shoora Karna”, staged in Abludu village on Tuesday night. The play was directed by Bashettahalli B S Manjunath. Make-up Venkatesh also stage decoration and lighting bringing the play to life.

“It take at least half-an-hour to apply make-up to each character. With four persons to assist in the make-up we were able to apply make up to 25 characters. Limited time, small space and summer heat were some of the hurdles we faced but managed to successfully staged the play. 

If half of the efforts were ours, the other half was that of the director who trained the actors. We were happy when the play was staged through the night and the audience applauded”, said make-up artiste Malamachanahalli Venkateshappa.

The play incorporated literature, music and dance and also used Telugu for narration making it bilingual. By using the epic poetry, our culture is brought into the forefront besides values such as brotherly love, protecting religion and compassion through various characters. The audience in particular loved the female characters in the play.