ON THE DEATH OF THE LATE TIATRIST MASTER VAZ.

On behalf of myself and all the like minded Goans especially the Tiatro lovers, I express my deep feeling of regret over the news of the sad demise of one of the pillars of yesteryear Tiatrists, the late Jose Lawrence Vaz popularly known as Master Vaz in the Tiatro world, on 12^th of this month, he was in his nineties.

Master Vaz was the youngest Tiatrist during those days to  participate in the Tiatros and precisely because of this he was named as MASTER Vaz, this name he finally will carry to his grave tomorrow.  He was the most faithful lieutenant of the legendary Minguel Rod who stood by Rod even though Rod was wrong at times especially when Rod betrayed other two colleagues of his Trio, namely Kid Boxer & Young Menezes  and formed a Quarter comprising the great Alexinho de Candolim – C. Alvares – Jacinto Vaz – Minguel Rod, only to see him returning back afterawhile to the original Trio known as Kid-Young Rod. Minguel  Rod once told my father who was a close friend of Rod that “I will never find another jewel of a person in my life like my Kumpar” meaning Master Vaz, “who remained faithful to me thru thick and thin like Eva Braun remained faithful to Hitler”. Master Vaz to build his relationship with Minguel Rod on strong footing, made Rod his Kumpar by naming one of his siblings after him. Being his closest friend and colleague, Master was in his own handwriting scripted a few of Rod’s Tiatros of course dictated by Minguel Rod and being so he made by-heart many of Rod’s Tiatros. It so happened once while going to stage his Tiatro “Lembddo Santan” at P.T. Bhangwaddy, Bombay, Minguel Rod carrying the script of the Tiatro got drunk on the way and having lost his strength to walk any further, he slept there only on “Cross Maidan”  at Dhobitalao while Master Vaz and other artistes were eagerly awaiting the script.  Having no sign of the director who slept well there but awakened at dawn by some of the Tiatro goers who were returning home after watching the said Tiatro which was successfully staged under the direction of Master Vaz who knowing the whole script by-heart prompted it to each artiste successfully.  Such was the genius of this great Tiatrist who is one of the last vestiges of the first batch of the Tiarists.

A  few years back his Tiatrist son Marcus Vaz brought him to Kuwait to participate in his Tiatro  staged in Kuwait and when he came to know that the visiting artistes from Goa were accommodated at my place in Kuwait city, he was overwhelmed and showered fabulous praises on me not only for this gesture but more than that in his own words “for helping and promoting our Tiatros in Kuwait” and concluding thus, “please consider this Tiatro as yours too”.  We have felicitated him during the Tiatro in front of Hall packed audience who in unison gave him standing ovation.

Earlier, from mid sixties he was a strong member of Young Stars of Goa troupe where he was also playing the role of a female. I can still remember the short role he played then in Nelson Afonso’s highly political Tiatro “Nationalist”, of an innocent and ignorant person keeping the Bomb on the roadside on the command of Agente Monteiro where his trembling hands and terrorized eyes by the worst “Paklo” Agente Monteiro created fear into the minds and hearts of the audience.     

While concluding, I pray to Heavenly Father to take care of the soul of our dear Master Vaz who served Konkani Stage for such a long period and offer my heartfelt condolences to all his family members.

 

May the soul of Master Vaz rest in peace.

A.Veronica Fernandes.

IS THE DEATH OF TIATRO NEARING?

 This is on the current state of affairs of our Tiatros. It is sickening to see the vulgarity in our Tiatros increasing by leaps and bounds, this sickening state is brought by the few vulgar comedians who are responsible to desecrate the otherwise decent Konkani Stage. I have seen with my own eyes so many times some of the families attending the Tiatros, in order to prevent their children from watching the dirty and vulgar comedy instead walked out from the hall in the middle of the Tiatros.  After my interaction with many Tiatro goers, I got information that many of the regular Tiatro goers  are refusing to patronise  these because of cheap vulgar comedy and hence there is a boycott going on our Tiatros.  I was informed thru telephonic conversation recently by one Priest stationed in UK to do something to stop this vulgarity leading to sin. My reply to that Goan priest was simple that I am doing whatever best I can to hammer into the minds of these few comedians to read the writings on the wall, that is overwhelming majority of the Tiatro goers comprising the decent ones are opposing the vulgarity in any form in our Tiatros leading to the downfall of this over 125 years old beautiful art. Some of these guilty comedians are boasting saying they are in demand because audience like this type of comedy.  But let me ask these comedians, which is that audience?  What is their class and quality?  They are equally worst as these vulgarists are.  In view of this, what good they can perform to improve the quality of our Tiatros? These cheap comedians even in UK during their Shows disgraced the fair image of our Tiatros by performing vulgar comedy of course to the chagrin of the decent attendees. Though I am doing whatever I can to stop this vulgarity thru my writings but one man cannot control the world.  There should be unified efforts from all the like minded writers and activists to campaign very hard against this vulgarity because the vulgarity in our Tiatros will surely kill our Tiatros. In order to save our Tiatros we must put an end to vulgarity in our Tiatros otherwise vulgarity in our Tiatros will put end to our Tiatros.  As it is the level of our Tiatrtos is gone down very much, most of the recent Tiatros are "pochpochit", to pen down a good Tiatro you need lot of knowledge and to acquire it you have to have time.  Now we see some directors are staging two Tiatros per year without applying their minds seriously to dish out something extra ordinary. These tin pot writers and directors are only interested in fattening the number of their productions but not on the quality of their Tiatros.  

I am one of the admirers of yesteryear Tiatrists who wrote and staged best of Tiatros of which type none of the present, the so called self titled super stars, super directors and super Tiatrists could stage. Most of the Tiatrists with whom I have interacted are "Nal" Tiatrists, there is nothing extra ordinary in their "Bezo", they are only interested in making money.  The yesteryear Tiatrists never raced after money, they were interested in dishing qualitative Tiatros and because they were doing so our Tiatros are still surviving.  Not the current tin pot directors are responsible to keep the Tiatro art alive till now. If it was not for the earlier Tiatrists' the current Tiatrists will never survive but they are surviving only because of the time the elder tiatrists  took to write qualitative  Tiatros that put a  strong base for our Tiatros.     

Recently in Mapusa  one Tiatro of the topmost Tiatrist was cancelled at the last minute because hardly 50 tickets were sold, then on the next day for the Tiatro of another top Tiatrist, only half the hall attended and for another Tiatro of another top director hardly 25 attendees watched this Tiatro. If this trend continues then the future of our Tiatros is precarious and the government wants this only to happen because Tiatrists are exposing  the misdeeds of the government. To curtail the power of the Tiatrists, the government according to my observation has with silly excuse of repairs, the Kala Academy Hall stopped for renting for Tiatros.  If this hall was in such a dangerous condition, how the government gave it for IFFI programme? 

Now is the right time all the Tiatrists in unison must take up this issue with the concerned authority while Tiatr Academy of Goa must not ignore it because of the doles it is getting from the government..   

A.Veronica Fernandes..

NEW TIATRO "HO UZO PALOUNK ZATA" BY MARIO MENEZES.

NEW TIATRO "HO UZO PALOUNK ZATA" BY TRAGEDY KING MARIO MENEZES

   

Rosy Alvares singing her solo

On 24^th of this month, Sunday, at 3.45 PM, I saw the new Tiatro “Ho Uzo Palounk Zata” written and directed by Mario Menezes, this was his 52^nd Tiatro.  Though the Tiatro was good and staged well yet and sadly it was poorly attended by the audience, however not as poorly as that on the previous day at the same venue and because of this that Tiatro on that day i.e. previous day Tiatro was cancelled.  At least Mario Menezes Tiatro was attended by about 50% of the attendees but another Tiatro of another director at the same venue at 7.30 PM had hardly 50 members of the audience and despite this fact the director volunteered to go ahead with perfroming this Tiatro.

Seen above is Mini Mario singing his solo

Sanaya singing her comedy solo 

Was it a wake up call or it was the time of punishment for the Tiatrists who are promoting the vulgarity in the Tiatros? “Punishment comes lame footed” and according to the realities appearing now the audience has started to boycott the Tiatros.  There is a proverb in our Konkani saying “Devachea Marank Avaz Na”.  There is not a single Tiatrist in our Konkani Stage who opposed the vulgarity fereciously, openly and loudly. They are part of the blame for the people to boycott the Tiatros as it already happened.  The so called powerful Tiatrists carry the blame for not only not opposing the vulgarity in their Tiatros performed by the vulgar comedians in their comedy roles but more than that they are guilty of keeping their silence on these vulgarity and because some of them are in favour of vulgarity and sinful life they are leading the vulgar life living with "Cheddio".  Many of the seniors and prominents are the first to be blamed for this sinful vulgarity performed mainly by some of the sinful vulgar Comedians. Because of this fault of the few the punishment came on the all. The saying in Konkani goes thus: "Eka Patkeak lagon Devan Tarum Buddoilem". There is no cure for these rascal vulgar Titrist, they dont understand decent language and they dont even recognise the God's punishment. Hence, death is the result of those who are adamant to leave sin of vulgarity. Hence, it is my request to those who are promoting the sinful vulgarity from the Stage for God's sake please put an end to this sin so that you live longer with the blessings of God. If you defy God and society then you will suffer worst punsihment.  It is not my wish to see you face worst punishment, I have seen gigantic Tiatrists with himalayan brain using the Stage for promoting their personal topics of defaming othrs, they finally collapsed like a packn of cards and what is the calibre of the few "kalche Porche Potte" who think they have devine right to do anything from the Stage.  It is a p[ity that they re sad;ly mistaken and I see nothing but disaster for them which is coming very fast.   

A scene where seen at right are the beautiful Sanaya with attraxctive Rosy Alvares

Seen above is writer & director of the Tiatro Mario Menezes

Mario Menezes in this Tiatro does a very good deed of introducing some new faces who did perform well in singing songs as well as in the performance of the play.  With little more guidance from the seniors they will surely fill the vacuum created by some who have already left Goa for greener pastures.

Seen Singing a nice quarter

Seen above are two beauties Sanaya & Elisa singing their song 

The central idea of this tiatro as it was given in figurative sense Ho Uzo Palounk Zata is the disputes arising between Mothers-In-Law and Daughters – in – law as it is happening most of the times among our families.  All the artistes played their roles well but Rosy Alvares deserves better marks for her role of mother-in-law and the role played of the daughter-in-law by Sanaya was excellent. Both the comedians Baldwin and Elisa performed well their comedy roles.

One of the scenes above

Seen above is comedian Bladwin singing his comedy song

The side – show songs were good but did not reach to its peak and since many of the singers  being new faces it will take time for them to create an acceptance by the audience and secondly they will have to indicate their best of talents in composing and singing best songs.  However, the solo of Rosy Alvares was rendered very well with her melodious voice so too both the comedy solos rendered by Baldwin with one encore and by Sanaya with 3 encores were excellent, the latter imitated the late William de Curtorim. The solo rendered by Pierson was worth admiring so too of Mini Mario and the political trio rendered by Mario Menezes-Mini Mario-Tony de Ribandar was excellent.

A.Veronica Fernandes.