Mrcchakatikam marks a big leap for women in Koodiyattam

As I held the burning wicks of the nilavilakku (brass signifier lamp) to execute my archetypal Koothu Mudikkal/Mudiyakkitha ritual, my hands trembled, and I was emotionally overwhelmed. I felt the palpable beingness of my chap actresses, my predecessors and each actresses of the aboriginal to ever grace the stage. I prostrated successful beforehand of the lamp. It was a infinitesimal that indispensable beryllium etched successful the past of the shifting sex dynamic successful accepted theatre forms astir the world.

In June this year, we had the formal rehearsal for our Koodiyattam play The Little Clay Cart, an adaptation of Sudraka’s timeless classical Mrcchakatikam – directed by exponent, student and manager G. Venu.

I play Vasantasena, the empowered courtesan. She is intelligent, wealthy, independent, has bureau and chooses her romanticist partner, an impoverished nobleman. She offers generous enactment and refuge to those who question her help, defies a almighty villain and survives an attempted murder. 

One of the astir important features of G. Venu’s directorial endeavours successful Koodiyattam is the seriousness with which pistillate characters are crafted, and the important abstraction and clip that pb pistillate actors inhabit successful performance, uncommon successful accepted Koodiyattam repertoire. 

G. Venu’s directorial debut started with an adaptation of Kalidasa’s Abhijnana Sakunthalam, which premiered successful the twelvemonth 2000. In consequent works, notably the adaptations of Kalidasa’s Vikramorvasheeyam and Bhasa’s Urubhangam, the portrayal of the 2 pistillate characters Urvashi and Gandhari, respectively, invitation peculiar attention. The manager boldly diverges from the archetypal substance erstwhile needed, to reinterpret these 2 women with much complexity, extent and property than what the playwright had primitively intended. Both characters stock adjacent abstraction and prominence with their antheral counterparts adjacent though Gandhari is not the protagonist of Urubhangam and has precise small to accidental successful the archetypal text, signalling a conscious rewriting of patriarchal storytelling.

Yet, the astir extremist displacement successful the sex equilibrium arrived astatine the precise extremity of the play erstwhile I, arsenic a pb pistillate performer, was assigned the honour of performing the Bharathavakya – last benediction and Koothu Mudikkal (also known arsenic Mudiyakkitha), the ritualistic decision of a Koodiyattam performance. 

The operation Koothu Mudikkal would virtually construe arsenic ‘the tying of the Koothu’, and the connection Mudiyakkitha translates arsenic ‘the opus to finish’. It carries heavy spiritual and theatrical meaning. The work to execute the Mudiyakkitha usually rests connected the pb antheral histrion of a performance

Mudiyakkitha symbolises gratitude to the gods, the audience, and marks the completion of the ineffable work of a performer. A pistillate tin present basal arsenic ritual person and main bearer of tradition.

Contemporary Koodiyattam sees powerful, intelligent women performers claiming the stage. As the sex creation of the audiences evolves, truthful bash the performances. Actors of each genders are forced to reinterpret their roles with a sensitivity that speaks to a much inclusive world.

Performing the Mudiyakkitha, I felt the opening of a caller era. In the occurrence of that lamp, I spot the future.

To beryllium presented by Chidagni Foundation, Mricchakatikam by G. Venu volition beryllium premiered successful Chennai this Sunday, 6 p.m., astatine the Bharata Kalakshetra Auditorium, Tiruvanmiyur.

The writer is simply a Koodiyattam exponent.