Hindu Union Club was popular theatre club in the state of Karnataka. During the 1890s there were many theatre groups that travelled to parts of Karnataka, like the famous Kirloskar Sangeeta Nataka Mandali which visited Dharwar in 1893. This troupe, for the first time, acquainted the Kannada audiences with the achievements of the Marathi theatre. Their shows of Ramaraiya Viybga, Shopa Sambhrama and Saubhadra became popular here, but set the active minds to seriously think about the future of the Kannada stage.
The Hindu Union Club in Dharwar staged the Marathi drama Tratika, an adaptation of Shakespeare`s Taming of the Shrew, done by Prof. V. B. Kelkar of Poona. In a way, this effort of the Hindu Union Club was a challenge to the visiting companies all right, for it is said that the performance of the Club was a shade better than the performance of the same play (Tratika) by the well known Shdhunagarawdsi Natah Mandali which staged "some of the finest plays in prose seen on the Marathi stage" and which had to its credit, a brilliant galaxy of actors including Ganapatrao Joshi and Balavantrao Jog. May be it was with a touch of obvious pride that the talent of the Hindu Union Club was compared with that of the Shahunagarawasi Nataka Mandali, but the former group proved that it deserved it when it staged in Marathi theatre, Rana Bhimadeva and Naraveera Malusare with brilliant success. Bijapur took up the trend from Dharwar and some enthusiastic graduates like Kaujalgi Shrinivasrao and Mugali Shrinivasrao started staging plays in Marathi, of which Rana Bhimadeva became most popular.
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