Themes of Kathakali
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PAPER 5 DANCE, POETS AND POETRY, RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY AND INDIAN CLASSICAL DANCE MODULE 12 POETRY AND THEMES OF KATHAKALI Painted those faces vibrant their drapes bright their crowns a king, a queen for throbbing crowd legends mystified expression epitomized poetic melodies resounding drums. without a word with style and pause, on stage to enact vision and wisdom, love and passion, war and bloodshed. epics cruise through their eloquent intelligence and at the end with their empty hands subtract paints and those crowns of a bright make believe world. Rema Prasanaa / राम प्रसन्ना 1 This poem by Rema Prasanaa is about the Kathakali artsite. Yet the Kathakali artiste is matrixed himself in poetry, as the play unfolds to poetry. In an interesting quirk of fate, the revival of Kathakali and the formation of its most significant dance training school, the Kerela Kalamandalam, were by one of Kerela’s leading poets, the triumvirate of the Malyalam language’s modern day trinity of Vallathol Narayan Menon, Kumaran Asan / कु मारन असान and Ullooor S. Parmeswara Iyer. It is said that together with Kumaran Asan, Vallathol was responsible for bringing about a revolutionary change in Malayalam poetry in the nineteen-twenties. Asan concentrated on social themes and Vallathol championed the national movement; yet both made very significant contributions to the khandkavya / खंडका핍य, i.e. the short poem of the lyrical type. The performance arc of the Kathakali artiste whether from the Northern school of Kathakali and performing the Kallatikkodan form of Kathakali, largely groomed by the Kerela Kalamandalam in the 20th century, or from the southern school of Kathakali and performing the Kaplingadan sampradaya / कप्ऱंगदान संप्रदाय, or from the central part and performing the Kalluvazhi / क쥍ऱुव煍ही form, or the Malabarian Kadalhanad type, Kathakali remains an exotic and lesser understood form when considered at a pan Indian level. This is something that deserves to be set right for Kathakali is a beautiful; multi layered and sophisticated form, carrying effortlessly a series of codes- codes in costumes, colours, and signs and symbols, as well as multiple levels of poetic interpretations. Varied and numerous streams of imagination operate in a grid of song and percussion. It is an art that calls on the audience and the actor to participate actively in the process of meaning making. The kathakali dancers make a language with their eyes, eyebrows, hands, and cheeks. Everything is stylized. Admittedly, all of the Indian dance tradition is like that, and Kathakali is the greatest realization of 2 that. There is no realism in it. Dress is coded to convey the type of character- Pacha / ऩ楍च, Tadi / ताड़ी, Kati / कट्टई or Minukku / ममन啍कू . Although all this is included in aharyam / आहययम, the aharyam with its large Mudis and frilled skirts, successfully gives the performers an ‘other worldly’ feel. Reinforcing the ‘alaukik / अऱौककक’ presence is the supernatural stance with an inwardly turned foot, which constitutes the basic position of Kathakali. But while the Ahryam is busy reinforcing this otherworldly feel, the song that constitutes the Vachika element of Abhinaya, throws you off, and has an element of surprise, because of the sheer humanness of the character that it depicts. Another aspect in the performance of the text, that enhances the ‘alaukik’ nature of the play, is that fact that the characters do not address each other and appear to be addressing the great beyond! Critical connoisseurship is essential for appreciating the fullness of the impact. The music of Kathakali is beautiful enough as is the poetry that is rich in similes and metaphors, which permit long drawn ‘sancharis’. The poetry has to be followed carefully, to be appreciated. For instance Mandodari is described as the “Sharadindu Manohar vadande / शारदददं ु मनोहर वदंडे” or the one with the face as beautiful as the autumnal moon. However, while the words say this, the meaning will be conveyed in a more complex manner, with sancharis woven in. These sancharis will be of a pair of the Chakravaka birds, flying in the night sky, who on suddenly sighting the beautiful moon, which is Mandodari’s face, getting inspired, and invoking a rush of love. This kind of treatment of poetry calls for imaginative interpretational capacities and the skill of ‘prakaranattam / प्रकाराणआट्टम’ which is the taking up of many roles, within one song. Another fine example of this is in the play “Kalyana Saugandhikam”, where in one scene 3 the majestic elephant is slowly succumbing to a double attack of a python and a lion. The dancer describing this scene switches from one character to another in this three way struggle of impending death. There are two texts that are followed in Kathakali. One is the poetic text which is considered sacrosanct in the sense that it is complete and should not be added to or subtracted from. The other is the dance text which is called the ‘atakatha / अटकथा’. Even the atakatha is always written in poetry and never in prose. In all, according to well known scholar of the Kerela arts, G. Venu, there are atleast 400 attakathas. Of them 100 are well known and 50 are in regular performance. But the tradition of doing entire plays has reduced and excerpts are done for an evening of performance. However, skill at poetry does not automatically beget skill in preparing a brilliant ‘atakatha’. An Attakathak is a set performance score. Many theatrical forms like Kaathakali / कथकऱी, koodiyattam / कु डीयाट्टम, Japan’s Noh and kabuki have set performance scores. As a result of this set score, performance conventions change very little from performance to performance. This is in contrast to the western theatres priority to creating a fresh, new and unique performance score with each performance. An Attakatha is more than a set literary text. It contains all the literary markers that frame it as a performance. It contains the collective conventions established by tradition and handed down from teacher to student or from performer to performer. The enactment of certain roles by masters, end up becoming conventions, which is the reason why the immense influence of Ravunni Menon is often cited. The performance text therefore consists of what Phillip Zarrilli calls the “Outer Markers” that constitutes the skeleton of the play, within which each performer performs and gives it the flesh, muscles, sinews and live breath. 4 Performance knowledge is a highly specialised art arising from long years of traditional training. Only then are the elaborations, and the elaborations of elaborations, that mark Kathakali’s performance, and make all night performances and multiple night performances, possible. Despite being much more that a literary text, an Attakatha cannot ever give a complete idea of what the Kathakali performance actually is, but it is the starting point of the actual performance. It was to address this need that while originally in Kathakali, the lyrical contents (i.e. the Aattakatha / अट्टकथा) were prepared, recently Kalamandalam Padmanabhan Nair, retired Principal of Kerala Kalamandalam, created a more detailed treatment of the text of Kathakali, in his two volume book, titled Kathakalivesham / कथकऱी वेशं. Part one has the manuals for the invocation items viz. Thodayam / थोडयम, Purappadu / ऩुर्ऩाडू & Pakuthippurappadu / ऩकु थथ्ऩुर्ऩाडू. Part two has the manuals for Irayyiman Thampi’s Subhadraharanam / सुभद्राहरणं, Narakasuravadham / नरकासुरवधं and Kottayathu Tampuran’s Bakavadham / बकवधं. The first set of Atakathas was written by the Raja of Kottarakara followed by the Raja of Kottayam. However, over the years, originally authored Kathakali plays have spawned the creation of performance scores that may diverge radically from the received literary text. Different performance scores may exist for a the same play, arising out of the subtle variations introduced by the plays, when treated by different Kathakali schools. 5 Themes of Kathakali The themes of the Kathakali are religious in nature. They typically deal with the Mahabarat, the Ramayana and, Bhagavatha and the ancient scriptures known as the Puranas. This is performed in a text which is generally Sanskritised Malayalam. Recently, as part of attempts to further popularize the art, stories from other cultures and mythologies, has been the subject of several Kathakali plays. Mary Magdalene from the Bible, Homer's Iliad, and William Shakespeare's King Lear and Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and Othello, besides Goethe's Faust too have been adapted into Kathakali scripts and on to its stage. Further Western themes like John the Baptist, Sohrab and Rustum, etc. have also been tried out. Viewed by the prism of human and emotional themes, there are stories of infatuation like that of Urvasi, Soorppanakha, etc. In Kathakali there is also a story of jilted love - the Kacha-Devayani Charitham Other secular stories have included the story of Mahatma Gandhi and the Hindi version of Kuchelavrutham / कु चेऱाव配ृ तम. Many works on social and political themes have but had a poor reception, for as scholar Appukuttan Nair admits, “social reality is anathema to Kathakali. Some of the key Kathakali Poets and their works Some of the brilliant poets that have written for Kathakali include Unnayi Varrier famed for his chef-d'oeuvre “Nalacharitam / th नऱचररतम”. Varriar was born in the second part of the 17 century, and there is a temple record that states that an excerpt of it was performed at the Padmanabhaswamy temple festival, as early as 1752. Nalacharitham elevated the literary standards of Kathakali and is widely recognised to be path breaking and pioneering in its approach to make Kathakali a complete art form. The fundamental 6 influence that Unnayi Variyar has had on Kathakali is on the emergence of importance being given to the creation of Rasa as against a more dominant Bhava oriented presentation.