CHENNAI: The play ends with six women on stage, five of whom were written by the sixth. The first five women are characters from stories written by R Chudamani – a renowned Tamil author. The sixth actor plays the author herself.
Chudamani, a play presented by The Madras Players on Sunday, takes audience through the quest of women who try to find themselves. The play boasts of being the longest run show of the Players. First performed over three years ago, they have performed it nearly 30 times so far, says PC Ramakrishna, the director of the play.
“Even though we’ve enacted this script so many times, we keep finding new relevance and meaning each time we perform it,” he said speaking to Express. He added that all but one of the original cast, still performs the play till date.
Adding to this, Prabha Sridevan, a retired judge of Madras High Court, who translated Chudamani’s work to English, told Express that even though she worked closely with the script, the only version of the play she remembers is the one performed by this team of actors.
The play spins around women, their celibacy, their aspirations and even rebellion. The actor who plays Chudamani, seamlessly switches between serving as the narrator at one moment, and then as a conscience to the character at the other. When she’s not looking at the audience, she’s in a deep conversation with one of her characters.
Through seven plays woven into a continuum, each protagonist finds womanhood in different things. One finds it in motherhood, another in her career, another in taking care of her blind father and another in a philosophical quest. The variation in these quests stands symbol for meaning of womanhood: one that’s unique to every woman.