15/06/2016
It was a rain-soaked evening. Around 7 p.m., a crowd, drenched in the downpour, was heading toward a huge tent erected at the Kozhikode Medical College ground. Inside the tent, there is a stage surrounded by gallery from three sides and a projection screen on the fourth. Aliyar's tea stall was on one corner of the stage. Madhavan Nair's tailoring shop occupied another spot. The mystic village that O.V. Vijayan created in his novel Khasakkinte Ithihasam (The legend of Khasak) was being recreated on the stage.
Deepan Sivaraman, a Thrissur School of Drama alumnus and Associate Professor in Delhi Ambedkar University, is the man behind the play based on Vijayan's magnum opus. More than 500 people turned up for the play braving rains on that day: proof that Khasak continues to keep Malayalees spellbound.
Sivaraman's Khasak isn't the exact visual representation of Vijayan's book. For instance, Vijayan's protagonist Ravi is just one among the many characters in the play as the director has given more space to characters such as Allapicha Mollakka, Naijamali and Maimuna. Sometimes you even feel that Sivaraman's Khasak is all about them.
The play starts and ends with a procession of souls in a graveyard. Sitting around an open space, you witness characters suddenly coming on to you. In no time you feel like sitting in a sarvathu peedika, having sarvath and watching Ravi. You are anxious of his whereabouts, much like the shop owner does.
The director has used fragmented narration to connect with the story. You witness four different things happening in different time settings on the stage simultaneously: Ravi's wheel chair-bound father accompanied by his step mother, his father in hospital in the background screen, Padma calling him from far away, the haunting image of the step mother as a puppet (the puppet is the representation of the many women who were in Ravi's life). The viewer has the choice to see what he or she wants to see. Or you can connect the scenes together and arrive at your own conclusion.
For Sivaraman, theater is a matter of total experience. He doesn't believe in making it simple either. "I don’t treat my spectators as school children; I want them to be intelligent, creative people who have a basic vocabulary on their surroundings," he said in an interview. "Basic education is not the job of the dramatist. And we need story for everything and we ask for one even when we watch a painting. This is the problem."
How does he respond to the criticism about his dependence on the background screen to overcome the drawback of theater?
"My approach to the theater is total, for I use all possibilities of art in my theater. It's a multi-weaving process. Here, you don't create a play around an accurate proper structure. By just narrating a story, you are open to multiple narrations through puppetry, video art, sculptures, dance, music, painting, architecture… and my play is rich in these."
According to Sivaraman, there is nothing like 'pure theater' in these post dramatic times; today the theater is hybrid and interactive. The director's other works include Spinal Cord, Ubu Roi, Peer Gynt and The Cabinet of Dr. Calgary. Sivaraman says hopes to dramatize Aalahayude Penmakkal by Sarah Joseph as his next venture.
By inviting the spectator to the marriage of Maimuna, the director is aiming to establish a unique connection between the audience and the play. By this conscious choice, he makes the spectator equally involved in the sin of getting Maimuna married to Munkakozhi. The smell of Cuticura powder and chicken curry nostalgically takes you to a nikah in a village. "Theater is not a dialogue-preferred art; it’s a sensorial experience from smell, touch and taste." Sivaraman says fragrance is the best way to connect with a culture: smell of the wet soil, fragrance of tea from a samovar and so on.
Vijayan ends his epic with the snake-bitten Ravi waiting for the bus. But in Sivaraman's Khasak, Ravi comes to the graveyard, dragging his trunk, to die there. The play ends with Ravi joining the procession of fire-bearing souls in a cloudy atmosphere.
Couldn't he have shortened the play from three and half hours by avoiding some detailing?
"My aim is not just to narrate the story. For me, it's a ritual like Theyyam or Koodiyattam; something to feel through violence, make up, ambience, costume, music and what not. To end this in half an hour is not my agenda. I don't expect everyone to come and watch my play. I entertain people who have time and taste."