In Bethlehem Kudumba Unit, when a ‘Chakyar Koothu’ performance suddenly appears on screen, one thing no one questions is the authenticity of the performer. Actor Shyam Mohan becomes a Chakyar Koothu artist in the role, his diction, his mannerisms, the way he moves — all something unique to his role as Hari.
That is why, when he transforms mid-fight into a ‘Kantara-like’ outburst as an angry elder brother, the audience laughs with the film rather than at it.
Though brief, Shyam’s portrayal of a Chakyar Koothu practitioner left an impression among the audience, as he effortlessly captured the art form’s demanding facial expressions.
Since the film’s release, Shyam has credited his acting trainer, Ajithlal Sivalal, for grasping the nuances of this traditional art form.
For Ajithlal, training actors is not something new; it evolved from his own experiences in the theatre and cinema world. It began with acting in school dramas and theatre productions, and later leading acting workshops.
Having entered the world of theatre clowning and cinema, Ajithlal sees actor training as an exploration rather than instruction. This is why he says his sessions don’t begin with a script. Instead, he focuses on movement, sensation, imagination and play — a way to explore one’s physicality.
He ventured into actor training with the Malayalam film ‘Christy’, starring Mathew Thomas and Malavika Mohanan and directed by debutant Alvin Henry. “Though the film did not fare well at the box office, the project marked an important step in my work as an acting coach,” he says.
Since then, he has continued to work with performers across projects, adapting his approach to suit the demands of each role. He has collaborated with many actors behind the scenes.
For him, the process begins with understanding what an actor can bring to a character. An actor preparing for a role does more than memorise lines, he declares.
“I try not to work psychologically. I like to work physically. I have three main ingredients: awareness, imagination and play. Play is at the centre of it,” he says.
He firmly believes that acting classes should not be about teaching performers to reproduce a particular emotion or mannerism. Instead, it is about helping them discover their potential. “I am more of a facilitator than a trainer or teacher, in that sense,” he says.
Teaching, Ajithlal says, began partly out of necessity. For many theatre practitioners, conducting workshops and acting classes becomes a means of earning a living. He, too, found himself taking that route, initially working with children in schools and at camps before moving on to adult learners.
“I started working with adults when a few people approached me to conduct clowning workshops. I was hesitant at first, unsure how to teach something I only explored on my own,” he recalls. But eventually, he developed a method through practice and experimentation. In between, he enjoyed helping others shed their inhibitions and discover their playful side.
“With established actors, it is about how we can make their character different, what new things we can bring in. We try to find the layers of the character and its body language,” he says.
The same philosophy takes a different form when working with children.
Ajithlal has trained prominent child actors, and says the process has to remain playful. Instead of asking a child to understand complicated acting terminology or forcing an emotion, he uses games and imagination to arrive at the required response.
“If the child has to be irritated, I might hand over a bottle and say it is a cockroach,” he says. The exercise becomes a game, but it helps the child access the emotion naturally.
For Ajithlal, it is also about protecting the actor’s instinct. Children, he says, have a strong imagination, while adults often allow their intelligence to take over.
“My aim is to create a space where performers can experiment without being afraid of getting it wrong,” he says.
His own journey began as a child actor, taking the stage while in school, where he played Jean Valjean in an adaptation of ‘Les Misérables’. Later, he joined the National School of Drama’s Bengaluru centre, opening up new possibilities in theatre.
“There, I got to discover physical theatre, clowning and unconventional performance spaces. It was during this time that I created an interactive performance called ‘Jasmine Walk’, which explored gender, won a Gender Bender grant awarded by Sandbox Collective and Goethe Institute back in 2018,” he remembers fondly.
Today, as founder and artistic director of Space of Act Theatre Collective, Ajithlal works across theatre, film and actor training.
Ajithlal has also explored directing with ‘Beyond the land of Hattamala’, a play by Badal Sarkar about two thieves who jump into a river while fleeing with money, only to find themselves in a place where money has no value.
Conceived as platform theatre, the production features five actors performing within a square space for 50 minutes, constantly shifting between characters and even transforming into objects.
“Once you get on the platform, you stay there for 50 minutes. There’s no exit. You become a tree, a person, a grandmother. It keeps changing, and it pushes the performer,” he says.
The format also allows the play to travel without the burden of elaborate sets or a large production budget. So far, the team has staged 19 shows of Hattamala, he shares.
His experience as a casting director has further shaped his understanding of performers. He has worked on films including ‘Pookkalam’ and ‘Trishanku’, and was a casting associate on ‘All We Imagine As Light’.
“As actors, we know good performers. So when we cast, we can recognise them and locate them,” he says.
For Ajithlal, casting goes beyond finding someone who fits a character’s appearance. The actor must also speak naturally in the role.
That is where training comes in, which has become more visible in Keralam in recent times, with workshops bringing theatre practitioners and film professionals together with aspiring performers.
For Ajithlal, however, the purpose still goes beyond preparing someone for a film set. “I just want to provide the space and the possibility to perform,” he says.
Perhaps that is also what he hopes to give the actors who enter his workshops — the space to try, fail, discover and perform differently.
Ajithlal is holding a three-day acting workshop titled Orukkam – An Actor’s Preparation, at Studio Fawn Tierra, Palarivattom, from November 6 to 8