JOIN USA traditional form of theatre from the hinterlands of Tamil Nadu, ‘kattaikkuttu ’ addresses its audience on many levels. Hema Vijay talks to the artistes who have preserved this ancient art form
The heady experience of colour sinks in first. The artistes are swathed in vivid paint, heavy kattai (wooden) ornaments inlaid with mirrorwork, elaborate headgear, and colourful costumes. There is live music from the harmonium, mridangam and the mukavinai. As in a ballad, the actors deliver songs, dance and dialogues. Remember, it is an eight-hour open-air theatre held under the night sky at the village centre, continuing right through the night, winding up only with the rising sun! Perhaps, no folk theatre anywhere in the world comes quite close to Tamil Nadu’s kattaikkuttu .
This traditional folk theatre of Tamil Nadu that is believed to have originated in its northern districts several centuries ago, might just be getting rediscovered by its urban connoisseurs, but it has nevertheless floored the wider world. Kattaikkuttu groups like the Kancheepuram-based Kattaikkuttu Sangam have staged abridged versions of these plays in the Netherlands, Belgium, UK and in Switzerland, to rousing ovations.
“We ran English subtitles on a screen at the back. The mixture of literary and colloquial Tamil and its rich repertoire of songs was far too interesting in Tamil, and we decided against performing the play in English,” says Dutch artiste Hanne M de Bruin, who founded Kattaikkuttu Sangam in 2002 along with her husband Perungattur P Rajagopal, a third generation kattaikkuttu artiste, director, teacher and script writer from Perungattur village in the Kancheepuram district. As someone who fell in love with the art of kattaikkuttu, as well as the artiste himself, Hanne had studied Indology at The Netherlands, with Sanskrit and Tamil as her language options. On a visit to Tamil Nadu in 1987, she came across kattaikkuttu. Mesmerised by its intensity, she went on to do her PhD in the art form, and has never looked beyond it ever since.
While the general impression is that traditional theatre arts like kattaikkuttu are dying out because of lack of patronage and the influx of the silver screen, the reality is far different in rural Tamil Nadu. Even today, dozens of kattaikkuttu companies exist in this state, and each of them gives around 150 performances every year. In villages like Punjarasantankal and Perungattur, kattaikkuttu performances take place in a square piece of ground within the village, close to the village temple. And during the Draupadi temple festival that is observed over 20 to 40 days between January and May, a repertoire of these plays are staged night after night — to audiences that run into thousands. Nevertheless, this theatre art does have a problem of visibility in urban India, as also in terms of literary references. “In my six years of study of Indology, I never came across any mention of kattaikkuttu,” Hanne remarks.
Intense drama
What makes kattaikkuttu so potent? The art form is colourful; it is intense; it is empowering; it is about complex situations and story lines that are traditionally always taken from the Mahabharata. Stories such as Draupadi’s marriage, the disrobing of Draupadi, Arjuna’s penance, Kichaka’s battle, Krishna’s embassy, Karna’s salvation, and Duryodhana’s death, are commonly performed. Traditional repertoires include stories from the Ramayana, and from the puranas. However, Mahabharata is an epic that is synonymous with kattaikkuttu. Now, of course, a few contemporary storylines are being explored. “Kattaikkuttu is a complex social theatre. It is about universal dilemmas that impact all of us, and are metaphors for our own life experiences, not unlike Shakespearean plays where the black and white shades of character are not so clearly delineated,” Hanne explains.
The art is physically taxing. It takes about two hours to get the face and body painted for the play. A concoction of synthetic colour pigments is mixed in coconut oil and applied using coconut fibre brushes! An eight-hour intense performance that involves several facial movements, songs, dances and enactments wearing head, shoulder and breast ornaments inlaid with mirror work (that represent valour and strength), not to mention sacred masks, bracelets, plates for the chest, hand gloves and waist belts as worn by ancient kings, further leave these artistes sapped of energy. Kattaikkuttu is staged with a cast of around 15 actors and musicians, and some of the artistes even assume dual roles. Whew!
Sixty-two-year-old Rajagopal, who has been performing this koothu (theatre) ever since he was a 10-year-old boy says, “It is tough on the actors physically, but the emotional intensity of the roles keeps us going. It took me 15 years to get a grip on the art.”
Each character in the play has a designated make-up and head gear set for the role. Songs figure aplenty in kattaikkuttu. As a song is sung by the actor, the artistes in the backstage form the chorus.
Traditionally, the cast was entirely male, with the art getting passed on from father to son, but now, female actors can be spotted. For instance, at the gurukulam-format school run by Kattaikkuttu Sangam, young girls are getting trained in the art form along with regular school education, and they have their own theatre company.
Though the entire range of spoken Tamil — from the literary kind to folk to its colloquial version — gets voiced during the play, the art is not really freestyle. It has its own grammar, as set down by a treatise written by Saint Sree Kagabujandar. The play uses the kattiyakaran, a clown-like figure to connect with the audience on their own terms, who uses contemporary metaphors and associations the audience can connect with. In fact, the kattiyakaran is central to the play, and is the first character to appear on the stage.
Sun worship
Kattaikkuttu is an art that is closely linked with religion. In fact, it evolved as a way to get people to live through the travails, dilemmas and challenges experienced by characters from the Mahabaratha, and imbibe the faith, spirituality and righteousness that saw those heroes get through their travails eventually.
“Traditionally, kattaikkuttu was staged on religious occasions like Paratam festivals, the Mariyamman, Ankalamman, Shiva and Vishnu festivals, besides during death rites,” informs Meenakshi Vasudevan, an artiste of the famed Koothu-P-Pattarai (Foundry of theatre) group of Chennai. Even today, before getting on to the stage, artistes visit the temple deity.
There is a reason the play is conducted overnight, and for the sun god being worshipped at the end of the play. The play concludes with the dazzle of the first rays of the sun, symbolising the dispelling of darkness, and as a metaphor for enlightenment in man’s mind and heart in choosing and persevering on the path of righteousness.