Some context: Mohanlal Viswanathan was born in the village of Elanthoor in the Pathanamthitta district on 21 May 1960. He is the youngest child of Viswanathan Nair, a former bureaucrat and law secretary with the Kerala Government, and Santhakumari. He grew up at Mudavanmugal, Poojappura, at his paternal house in Thiruvananthapuram. Mohanlal studied at Government Model Boys Higher Secondary School, Thiruvananthapuram and graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Mahatma Gandhi College in Thiruvananthapuram.
Mohanlal had acted in several amateur plays before entering into films. In 2001, he debuted in professional drama playing Karna (a character from the Indian epic Mahabharata) in Karnabharam, a Sanskrit-language play directed by Kavalam Narayana Panicker. It premiered at the Siri Fort Auditorium in New Delhi on 29 March 2001 as part of the National Theatre Festival of the National School of Drama. The play depicts Karna's mental agony a day before the Kurukshetra War, as he thinks about his past and his faith. Mohanlal said: "You cannot compare Kavalam's play with the amateur plays I did. Though there are other characters in the play, the theme revolves around Karna. It is almost like a solo performance. Some of the scenes are really touching and challenging". He acted without payment, saying: "I performed for the joy of it ... for my love of our history". Kadhayattam was a presentation enacted by Mohanlal, performing ten classic characters and situations from Malayalam literature, selected from ten Malayalam novels written by O. Chandu Menon, C. V. Raman Pillai, S. K. Pottekkatt, Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, P. Kesavadev, Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, Uroob, O. V. Vijayan, M. Mukundan, and M. T. Vasudevan Nair over a 100-year period. The play, directed by T. K. Rajeev Kumar premiered at the Senate Hall of University of Kerala on 1 November 2003, and later was staged in Kozhikode, Bangalore, Chennai and Delhi. In 2008, Mohanlal along with Mukesh performed in Chayamukhi, written and directed by Prasanth Narayanan. Mohanlal and Mukesh portrayed Bheeman and Keechakan respectively, the characters from Mahabharata. It had a play within a play narrative style. It premiered at the Lulu International Convention Centre in Thrissur on 12 March 2008, and later was staged in Thiruvananthapuram, Bangalore, Kollam, Kochi, and Kozhikode. A critic from The Hindu wrote: "Chayamukhi is, arguably, the finest work on Malayalam stage in recent times". In the same year, Mohanlal voiced Hanuman in the English ballet Maya Ravan, directed by Shobana. In 2014, Mohanlal and musician Ratheesh Vegha formed the music band Lalisom - The Lal Effect. Its maiden show was at the 2015 National Games of India. The band drew flak from social media initially for charging an amount of Rs1.63 crore and later for lip-syncing. Following the criticism, Mohanlal returned the amount to the government, which they refused stating that the government's morality would not allow to take back the money and Mohanlal had not personally benefited from the amount which he received, since it was meant to meet the stage expenses and remuneration for the artistes. Despite that, Mohanlal did not take back the money he dispatched. In 2015, he collaborated once again with Mukesh for Naga, but this time as the narrator. The play, based on Girish Karnad's Kannada play Nagamandala, was directed by Suveeran. Naga was a combination of myth, superstition, fact, and fantasy. It was premiered at the Parish Hall of St. George Church, Kalady on 9 August 2015.
what was his best performance?
A: "Chayamukhi is, arguably, the finest work on Malayalam stage in recent times".
Some context: Mazzy Star is an American alternative rock band formed in Santa Monica, California, in 1989 from remnants of the group Opal. Founding member David Roback's friend Hope Sandoval became the group's vocalist when Kendra Smith left Opal. Mazzy Star is best known for the song "Fade into You" which brought the band some success in the mid-1990s and was the group's biggest mainstream hit, earning extensive exposure on MTV, VH1, and radio airplay. Roback and Sandoval are the creative center of the band, with Sandoval as lyricist and Roback as composer of the majority of the band's material.
The first substantive confirmation that the duo would reconvene to complete work on their fourth studio album came from Sandoval herself in a July 2009 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, where she was quoted as saying, "It's true we're still together. We're almost finished [with the record]. But I have no idea what that means." Later, in a September 2009 interview with Vancouver-based music website Straight.com, interviewer John Lucas wrote of the 8-year gap between Bavarian Fruit Bread and Through the Devil Softly, "That seems like a long time until you consider that Mazzy Star, Sandoval's partnership with guitarist David Roback, hasn't put an album out since 1996. Sandoval promises that will change; she and Roback have their very own Chinese Democracy in the works, but it won't see the light of day until The Warm Inventions have wrapped up their tour." On October 12, 2011, Hope Sandoval's official website confirmed the duo would release their first new material in fifteen years later that same month. The double a-sided single "Common Burn"/"Lay Myself Down" was released digitally on October 31, 2011. A limited edition blue-coloured 7" vinyl was also announced for release on November 8, though a manufacturing delay resulted in its release being pushed back to January 24, 2012. Their fourth studio album was expected to be released in the latter half of 2012, following completion of a tour earlier in the year. The band completed an 18-date Californian and European tour in 2012, their first since 2000. Performing at several major European festivals, the band consisted of original members Suki Ewers and Keith Mitchell, and were also joined by Sandoval's Warm Inventions band-mate Colm O Ciosoig and Keith Mitchell's son Paul, whose band the Brook Lee Catastrophe also served as the opening act of select shows. Pedal steel guitar was performed by Josh Yenne. After the final date of the tour in August 2012, David Roback stated that production on the album had completed and that it would see release "soon". In late 2012, several unreleased song titles composed by Hope Sandoval and David Roback were registered with the band's long-time publisher BMI, including "Flying Low" and "Spoon", both of which were performed multiple times on the tour. The band also launched an official merchandise store. On July 13, 2013, the band announced details of their fourth studio album, Seasons of Your Day, which was released on September 23, 2013 in the UK, followed a day later on September 24 in the US. The album reached a career-high No. 24 on the UK albums chart. The band began a North American tour on November 3, 2013 in support of the album. On April 19, the band released two new songs as part of Record Store Day 2014. "I'm Less Here" and "Things" were released on 7" vinyl, with the run limited to 3,000 copies worldwide. On December 22, 2014, a 40-second clip of a previously unreleased song was posted on to the band's official Facebook account.
What was the group name before they change it ?
A:
The Warm Inventions