I heard few days back in RadioOne FM station, RJ Suchi say about a Mythology play “Maya Bazaar” to be performed by a 124-year old group “Surabhi”. And it contains excellent special effects on stage. My son loves the story of Ghatotkatcha (after watching the film), so I decided to take him to play “Maya Bazaar” today at 3:30PM. Booked the tickets online. The group Surabhi is an entire performing family (everyone on stage and back stage are related and from the same family) and are experts at rope & pyro techniques and other special effects. You can read more about them and the synopsis of the play in the brochure they gave from here (PDF) .
The play was in Telugu language (I don’t speak Telugu), still it was very enjoyable. They had over 50 artists (as young 2 or 3 years to very elderly) perform brilliantly on stage. The special effects were awesome, especially considering today’s viewers are used to 3D Graphics, Movies, XBOX and more. The notable scenes with special effects were a garden (with real water fountain), fireworks from Arrows, Rain to quash the fire, Bed floating on air, Narada coming down from sky, the famous eating scene with laddos flying, birds flying, an eagle hunting a fish, dual-screen – hide and show Hero/Heroine at the same time and many more.
The play shows only today (two shows) in Chennai. If you get a chance to see this play next time (may be in Hyderabad) don’t miss it.