Hidimbi was a revelation that I could act: Gayathri Padmanabhan
Despite the backing of a strong lineage such as theatre maestro Kalanilayam Krishnan Nair and Anantha Padmanabhan, Gayathri Padmanabhan took a long time to step onto the centre stage.
She grew up with the Kalanilayam, listening to the stories and observing actors and had theatre surging through her veins, but only recently did she realise its full potential.
Gayathri takes on the role of a computer science teacher in real life, but on stage, she amazes the audience with her spectacular performance as demon Hidimbi.
On her theatre stint, Gayathri says, I had never thought about taking up theatre. Even in school, I used to go for dance performances but never theatre. In fact, I never knew that I could act.â€
When it was decided to cast her as Hidimbi after actor Lakshmi Priya stepped aside for maternity care, she never expected much by way of response from the audience. My father was extremely confident that I could pull it off with just a three-day rehearsal. This confidence helped fuel the performer in me.â€
Hidimbi was last staged at the Fine Arts Hall, Kochi, on Monday and Gayathri once again found herself being showered with praises. This was just my third performance as Hidimbi and the response so far was overwhelming,†she says.
Gayathri says the performance was a challenge in every sense. Out of the two hours, one and a half hours are completely taken up by my solo act. It is difficult to keep the audience hooked to a solo act for so long. It was strenuous physically and vocally.â€
About the homework she put in for the role, she says, The first two shows were performed by Lakshmi Priya. I used to keenly observe her and was quite fascinated by Hidimbi. I never gave so much thought about Hidimbi before but after observing the performance, we used to discuss how much her situation still has great relevance in society. Moreover, I have been hearing about this play right from the planning stage, I guess that too has helped me perform.â€
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