CHENNAI: While many scenes from the Mahabharata can be related to incidents today, there is one episode and a character that haven’t caught the contemporary imagination — Abhimanyu (Arjuna’s son) who was sent into the Chakravyuha. The Kattaikkuttu Sangam, Kanchipuram, will depict the last scene of their eight-hour drama Abhimanyu at the Urur Olcott Kuppam Vizha today.
“We are performing the last scene because of time constraints. It’s a reworked version of the original play. It asks questions like why divorce happens, why young children like Abhimanyu are sent off to war, and to some extent also focuses on adolescence where you think you are powerful but in reality you are entering a circle...a kind of mental circle, from which you can’t get out again,” explains Hanne M de Bruin, who runs the Kattaikkuttu Gurukulam, along with her husband P Rajagopal.
The role of Abhimanyu will be performed by a girl and the other characters are also young. So how did Hanne help sensitise these kids to the questions? “We had conducted a series of workshops that focused on valour of ex-soldiers, the Sri Lankan conflict, etc. This isn’t a portrayal of Abhimanyu as a hero, but the other side where Pandavas and Kauravas have done something that cannot be undone. This is not a story of victory,” she asserts.
The Sangam was founded in 1990 and for the past 27 years, they have been trying to give a status to koothu. In 2003, the school was formed and it is now the principle programme of the sangam. “You wouldn’t find a theatre school that has students from age six to 18 as theatre is an ‘extra-curricular’ subject. We wanted to show theatre as a form of education,” she says.
But they are always faced with questions like whether koothu is worth learning, will it help as a career, can women continue after marriage, etc. “It’s very difficult to address these questions. This is a complete form that involves music, movement and acting all by actors. As an artiste, I feel it is definitely worthwhile. It’s the society that questions the girls,” she rues.
In the rural areas, koothu is still popular but what about the urban? “In urban areas, it is thought of as a dead art. I think koothu as an art form needs exposure. People have an opinion without knowing what it involves and the kind of skills and practice goes into this. And also, having an opinion without any knowledge is detrimental to the art form. Many think the actors just go on stage and say what comes to their mind. I understand it is not aesthetically pleasing, but it is difficult to talk off your mind for eight hours, no?” she avers.
But whenever they come to Chennai, they have to cut short their eight-hour performance to an hour. “The audiences in villages want eight-hour and overnight performances. When it becomes one hour, it is crisp and detailed. While there are advantages in a short koothu, audience and artistes lose out on a lot. For instance, the artiste doesn’t have time to respond to the audience and come up with a spontaneous reaction, and also the comedy and tempo is cut down,” she points out.
Kattaikkuttu has also been performed in the sabhas but Hanne is not happy about it. “Koothu must be performed on the ground and a heightened stage does not help. Also, the music and dialogues are better heard in open-air. But we need the right place and right kind of audience for it,” she says.
While they do contemporary themes and stories for the urban audience, the age old stories are best received in the rural areas. “We once did an adaptation of Tagore’s plays and that went well with the audience here,” she says. In future, the sangam plans to conduct more workshops where artists, urban and international, can meet their rural counterparts.
Kattai-k-koothu by the Kattaikkuttu Sangam will perform at Raga Sudha Hall, Mylapore, today, from 6.15 pm onwards. For details call: 24992672