Fisheries College SCUBA Team Enact ‘Van Gogh: A tale of love, Pain and Paint’
- Fisheries College SCUBA Team Enact ‘Van Gogh: A tale of love, Pain and Paint’! Dr Shivakumar Magada- a Professor at Fisheries College who had brought Vincent Willem Van Gogh to Mangaluru-and this tragedy was staged on 14.12.2018 at College of Fisheries, Mangaluru
Mangaluru: The City of Mangaluru is famous for dances, music, art and theatre. Normally Mangaluru theatre is dominated by social and comedy plays. Few professional troops occasionally perform absurd and experimental dramas. But a college team known as SCUBA-Students Cultural Union for Bringing Alchemy from College of Fisheries, Mangaluru enacted a play “Van Gogh: a tale of love, pain and paint” written and directed by Dr Shivakumar Magada, Professor at the same college. It is completely based on the autobiography of Van Gogh.
Dr Magada wrote this play in 1992 when he was a final year degree student. With manuscript only, it was staged in 1995 for Kannada Rajyothsava. In 1996 it was presented at the youth festival in Bangalore where it created big news because of its subject, raw scenes and dialogues. Later, Magada moved to Mandya, Bangalore and working for University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore as a Scientist. There again he directed the same with students of the college of agriculture. In 2004, he came back to Mangalore to do his PhD on deputation. It was staged in Town Hall, Mangalore in 2004
On one fine day, Dr Magada was travelling in Mangaluru in city bus during 2004. When the bus was passing by the Town Hall, he saw a banner where it was written “Sanketa” Professional theatre group of Mangaluru presenting a play on Van Gogh which was scheduled the next day. He was surprised to see his name on it. Out of curiosity, he went to the Town Hall and saw the drama quietly. After the show, he went on the stage and asked who the Shivakumar Magada was? They said that they don’t know. He identified himself and they were shocked because they had thought that the author of the play must be a matured grey-haired man. But Magada was young looking like 23 old though, he was 34. He was honoured by the artistes. The same team went to Mumbai and enacted the same and the lead and the director Mr Jagan Pawar won best actor and choice of critics’ award.
About Vincent Willem Van Gogh:
Vincent Willem Van Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post Impressionist who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterized by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. However, he was not commercially successful and his suicide at 37 followed years of mental illness and poverty.
Born into an upper-middle-class family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was serious, quiet and thoughtful. As a young man, he worked as an art dealer, often travelling, but became depressed after he was transferred to London. He turned to religion and spent time as a Protestant missionary in southern Belgium. He drifted in ill health and solitude before taking up painting in 1881, having moved back home with his parents. His younger brother Theo supported him financially, and the two kept up a long correspondence by letter.
His early works, mostly still lifes and depictions of peasant labourers, contain few signs of the vivid colour that distinguished his later work. In 1886, he moved to Paris, where he met members of the avant-garde, including Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, who were reacting against the Impressionist sensibility. As his work developed he created a new approach to still lifes and local landscapes. His paintings grew brighter in colour as he developed a style that became fully realised during his stay in Arles in the south of France in 1888. During this period he broadened his subject matter to include a series of olive trees, wheat fields and sunflowers.
Van Gogh suffered from psychotic episodes and delusions and though he worried about his mental stability, he often neglected his physical health, did not eat properly and drank heavily. His friendship with Gauguin ended after a confrontation with a razor when in a rage, he severed part of his own left ear. He spent time in psychiatric hospitals, including a period at Saint-Rémy. After he discharged himself and moved to the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, he came under the care of the homeopathic doctor Paul Gachet. His depression continued and on 27 July 1890, Van Gogh shot himself in the chest with a revolver. He died from his injuries two days later.
Van Gogh was unsuccessful during his lifetime and was considered a madman and a failure. He became famous after his suicide, and exists in the public imagination as the quintessential misunderstood genius, the artist “where discourses on madness and creativity converge”. His reputation began to grow in the early 20th century as elements of his painting style came to be incorporated by the Fauves and German Expressionists. He attained widespread critical, commercial and popular success over the ensuing decades, and is remembered as an important but tragic painter, whose troubled personality typifies the romantic ideal of the tortured artist.
Dr Magada decided to play this drama of his won and expressed in front of art enthusiasts. They agreed and within 72 hours, students picked up the highly unusual literary and lengthy dialogues which are beyond their age and analysis. Just support them and boost their confidence, he decided to play a small role. He also convinced Dr S M Shivaprakash his professor to act in it. Overnight stage properties were prepared. Mr Ismail, a great technician and Mr Sukesh were contacted for light and music. They brought the European flavour on the stage. It was portrayed excellently in front of class audience who were drop dead silent for 60 minutes.
The costumes were almost matching to the original characters and real characters were displayed on a big screen which added the value of the tragedy. Except me with a character Vincent William- Van Gogh’s brother Theo Van Gogh’s son, Mr Srinivas H Hulkoti (Van Gogh), Yashwini (Sien Hoornik), Shivani (Johana Willem) all were debutants for theatre, but they did not allow the audience to feel so. Ms Bhavanjali as Ursula Loyen, Praveen Joshi as David (Mine Worker) Amogh as Eugene Henry Paul Gauguin and Sushmitha as Janet played to their best.
In the climax, some of the serious theatre lovers said that they were struggling to avoid tears and failed…what one can expect. The play left deep thoughts and emotions among the audience. Using a Brecht (Bertolt Brecht’s concept of theatre is that it should educate people and make them rethink their assumptions. He wanted theatre to be mentally challenging) concept Magada came out of the character and by showing the figure towards artistes who were watching a play said that Van Gogh has reborn as Shivaprakash, Ismail, Ganesha Somayaji and ended a play in an abstract way.
Dr Magada said it will be staged again during the golden jubilee celebration of the college during October 2019.
Report submitted by: Prof. Dr Shivakumar Magada, M.F.Sc., Ph.D- Professor and Associate Director of Extension, College of Fisheries, Mangaluru