It was a rare privilege to watch a nine-hour-long performance of Kalidas’ Shakuntala, a contemporary version of the ancient theatre art form Kutiyattam, directed by Gopal Venu under the aegis of the National School of Drama (NSD). The experience was sublime. I reached another level of emotional cognition watching Kapila enact the role of Shakuntala. Using very few words from the huge text, playing with a few lines, expanding images and communicating with her hands and facial expression, Kapila displayed a magical theatre language which communicated mysterious beauty and spiritual bliss.
Her first meeting with the disguised Raja Dushyanta shows Shakuntala watering the plants in the Hermitage. A large bee attacks her and the king on seeing her distress comes out of hiding to save Shakuntala from the bee. The king has been watching her for some time and is attracted to her beauty. His reaction on coming close other is expected but for Shakuntala his sudden appearance creates confusion in her mind and body. The hesitant attraction is beautifully expressed by Kapila. The small diversion of a crazy elephant entering the hermitage, allows her to look at him surreptitiously. Incidentally, the description of the berserk elephant is indicative of wild passionate desire. This desire as expressed, with a fluttering of fingers and a shuddering of the body, by both Sooraj Nambiar and Kapila is intoxicating.
The Kutiyattam theatre of Kerala is one of the oldest living theatre forms in the world and the oldest surviving Sanskrit theatre tradition in India. It has been recognised by the Unesco as a “Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity”. Kutiyattam carries strong influences of the Natyashastra in both its abhinay and performance of the sentiments and the hand movements that also act as narrators of the story in Kutiyattam. While acting, the eyes and the mind focus on the images the hands are creating. The connection of the hands, mind and breath is what creates and sustains the natural emotions.
Considering the fact that a traditional Kutiyattam performance takes as along as the performer wishes and does not go down well with the audience, Venu decided to structure the play with actors of contemporary sensibility.
Venu, whom I have seen for years in NSD and at theatre and dance festival speaking with gurus while he was writing his seminal book on Hastabhinay, the system of hand gestures, started the Natana-Kairali-the Research and Performing centre for Traditional Arts adding an acting laboratory with the intent of training the younger generation in Kutiyattam. Venu has enlivened traditional repertoire and developed innovative works such as producing Kalidas’ Sanskrit dramas.
Venu also acted in Shakuntala as the fisherman who discovers the Ring of Recollection in the stomach of a fish. As a lower character, he did not stick to the classical style and added Prakrit, making the character very entertaining. Unfortunately, he overstretched his role. The second part of the e play begins with Shakuntala’s tender farewells to the hermitage where she spent her life under the guidance of the paternal figure of sage Kanva. He sends her off to Dushyanta, where she is rejected as Dushyanta does not recognise Shakuntala due to sage Durvasa’s curse. In her disappointed rage, a betrayed Shakuntala calls Dushyanta an “unarya”, faithless, with a poisoned mind. Her prayer to the Earth Goddess to protect her and rescue her from ignominy is a piece of brilliant theatre.
As she prays, Kapila becomes a glowing figure of light herself as she is embraced in radiance and taken away by mother earth. This was the highlight of the performance. The third part is more Dushyanta’s, beautifully enacted by Sooraj Nambiar, who discovers his son playing with a tiger cub and is finally reunited with Shakuntala.

DELIGHTFUL ENACTMENT OF GOGOL’S INSPECTOR GENERAL

It was a wonderfully entertaining evening at the NSD’s Abhimanch when the staff performed Ranjit Kapoor’s Chianpur ki Dastan an inventive Hindi adaptation of Nicholai Gogol’s Inspector General. Nattily directed by Amitabh “Bobby” Shrivastava, who as the Sutradhar spoke the prologue of the play, in which Ranjit’s satirical pen is sharpest as he describes Chainpur as a small town in post-independent India which still carries the strains of the riyasat raj, where corruption in rampant in every shape and form. The names he gives the characters reflect their traits. The postmaster, well played by C.D. Tewari, is named Jigyasu or curious as “he likes to keep in touch with the town” by reading each letter before delivering it. He is the one who sets the ball rolling when he receives a letter from his son-in-law who is also a postmaster in the family tradition, informs him of the impending arrival of an officer from Delhi to clean up the corruption in Chainpur. He will arrive incognito, says the letter.
An escaped convict is mistaken for the officer, and is wined and dined by the five scared heads of the town — the postmaster, the butchering doctor who ignores the hospital and runs a private practice (Satvir Singh), the judge (Om Prakash Sagar) believes in one-eyed justice, the head of police(a lovely cameo by N.K. Pant) has renounced the world and so is above the crimes committed by humans, and Khan Sahib the representative of the feudal chief who is burdened by a termagant as a second wife and a precocious daughter Fun and games begin when the two ladies fall in love with the impostor.
An element of social realism is inducted in the play with the introduction of the poor exploited people of Chainpur who erroneously appeal to the impostor. They form a tableau of the deprived and repressed in the end of the play which appeared somewhat out of place in the fun-filled play.