This year’s Kerala Natyotsavam, held towards the end of November by Drisyavedi, brought the spirit and substance of Kathakali to the art-loving public of Thiruvananthapuram through the theme, Lalitha in Kathakali.
Every year the festival takes a theme and this time it was the character Lalitha. Inaugurating the festival, poet B Sugathakumari went deep into certain feminine features depicted in Kathakali.
Lalitha, a name given to the enchantress transformed, usually from a demonic woman, to allure virtuous male, stands out as an exception among the weak female characters. We want to clear away the old belief that only male characters can be portrayed in Kathakali with all its subtle, masterly, resourceful performance, S Srinivasan of Drisyavedi said.
Lalitha did cast a spell on the audience during the six-day festival, be it Soorpanakha, Urvasi, Poothana or others. On the first day, Margi Vijayakumar presented Lalitha, ie Soorpanakha in ‘Kharavadham’. It was was specially choreographed for the festival at Margi Institute. The research work took many days of hard work, said Inchakkad Ramachandran Pillai, Principal of Margi, who also enacted the part of Sreerama in ‘Kharavadham’. Margi Vijayakumar also presented Urvasi in ‘Kalakeyavadham’. While Shanmukhan gave life to Lalitha in ‘Bakavadham’ and ‘Narakasuravadham’, Kalamandalam Rajasekharan presented Lalitha in ‘Kirmmeeravadham’ and Kalamandalam Vijaya Kumar took the role of Poothana in ‘Kamsavadham’.
During this festival renowned artists Kottackal Narayanan and Pathiyoor Sankaran Kutty were honoured. Many other veteran artists participated in the event. There was a group discussion and presentations on the subject ‘Female Characters in Kathakali’ which had the participation of Prof Venugopal, Margi Vijaya Kumar and other artists.
The website of Driysavedi- drisyavedi.org- was launched at the festival by Dr Achuth Shankar.