How Yakshagana art is keeping with the times, even in a Covid-19 world

In Akshayambara, an experimental Kannada play, the director uses contemporary theatre art and Yakshagana, the traditional multi-dimensional folk art of Karnataka, to weave in a story of gender role reversal.

For long, men have played women characters in movies and plays. But how would people take it if a woman played the role of a man? Akshayambara revolves around this central question and operates between the binaries of a man and woman.

While the director Sharanya Ramprakash plays the epic character Dushasana (Kaurava king) and Prasad Cherkady, 32, a theatre and film personality in Karnataka, dons the role of Draupadi.

Throughout, the show travels between the stage and the green room, and explores the opposing realities.