The Tamil play Kannamma is a haunting tale of grief and retribution

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A country   from the play.

A country from the play. | Photo Credit: S.R. Raghunathan

Ajay Entertainers’ Kannamma (produced by M. Jansirani; story, dialogue, and absorption by D. Mallikraj) opens with a chilling scene: the execution of a woman; and her 10-year-old daughter, Kannamma, who kills the murderer. She is sent to a reformatory school, wherever she spends her childhood. As a teenager, Kannamma is released, having utilized her clip successful the juvenile situation to amended her Tamil and poesy writing. Despite her achievements, avenging her mother’s decease remains her consuming obsession.

Eventually, Kannamma tracks down the antheral down the execution and kills him. The sombre accumulation portrayed a child’s innocence crushed by an big motive for revenge. The play unfolded arsenic a haunting tapestry of grief and fury, showing however trauma tin shatter the fragile psyche of a child. As the communicative progresses, we realise that the top transgression was not conscionable the execution but besides the intelligence warping of the child. LED sets, designed by P. Lakshmi Narayanan, were a ocular dainty — the hilly quality of Shimla with affluent interiors of the houses, and the dank, forbidding corridors of the reformatory institution. But, determination was 1 gaffe — determination were coconut trees successful Shimla! There were immoderate missing threads, due to the fact that of which continuity was lost. How did Lily (Barathi) zero successful connected a lawyer, who aboriginal turns retired to beryllium connected to the family? The motive for Lily’s execution was not explained.

Saismruthi’s portrayal of the schoolhouse girl, Kannamma, was realistic and the acold fury successful her eyes was unsettling. Priya Kannamma, arsenic the teenage-Kannamma besides performed well. Fortunately, determination was nary heavy-handed moralising astatine the extremity of the play. The playwright showed the assemblage what grief does to a kid who does not cognize however to process loss, and this had a lingering effect connected the viewers.

Published - May 18, 2026 12:42 p.m. IST

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