In 2008, Amal Rajdev was in a dilemma. A busy theatre artiste who was travelling all over the place, he was not able to spend enough time at home with his wife, Divya Lekshmi, a Bharatanatyam-cum-Otthanthullal artiste. So during a family get-together Amal along with his friends Shiji Nath and Krishnan Balakrishnan came up an idea to solve the issue — a play based on Vaikom Muhammed Basheer’s Premalekhanam , which would involve him and Divya; a minimalistic play that could be staged anywhere.
As the curtain goes up on the 1,000th performance at Tagore Theatre, Amal recalls that it has been a wonderful journey. “Although we have had a few big stages, we have mostly performed the play in schools, colleges, offices and residential areas. The affection we have received from all the places that we’ve performed is overwhelming,” says Amal.
Minimalistic tones
Staging the play for family audiences, Amal says, is special as the story itself is about a couple — Basheer’s Kesavan Nair and Saramma. Moreover, the play has been designed to be performed on a minimal space with the audience sitting around the stage. He adds: “On big stages there would be a separation between the audience and the performers. But acting in small venues help us strike a chord with the audience. Also, this is a Basheer story, which means that anyone can relate to it and enjoy it.”
He says the audience, regardless of where they perform, are pleasantly surprised to find that Amal and Divya are a couple in real life too. “We disclose it only at the end of the play,” says Amal.
Amal Rajdev
Their first performance was on March 16, 2008 at Vylopilly Samskriti Bhavan. Since then, they have staged the play all over Kerala as well as in other cities within India and in West Asia countries like UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain.
The play has been scripted by Basheer Manakkad and directed by Soorya Krishnamoorthy, one of Amal’s mentors. He has acted in several plays of Soorya, including the renowned Melvilaasam , in which he played the lead character of Captain Vikas Roy. “When we discussed the idea with him, he was all too happy to help us out. Usually he doesn’t allow the plays to be staged outside the Soorya fêtes. But in this case he allowed me to stage the play wherever I wanted to under the Soorya banner,” he says.
Original scene
The couple also staged the play at Poojappura Central Prison, which Amal says was a unique experience. “Basheer wrote Premalekhanam when he was imprisoned at Poojappura in 1943 and that made it even more special for us. Add to that the fact that Divya is perhaps the first lady to step into the C-block of the prison where the play was staged,” he says. They were later informed by the jail authorities that some of the prisoners enjoyed the performance to such an extent that they even tried to enact some of the scenes from the play during their free time.
Divya Lekshmi with Amal Rajdev in Premalekhanam
Although they are planning to continue the two-person act, Amal hints that this might be one of their last stages of Premalekhanam , as they are in the process of writing a new script.
Regardless of what people might say, he strongly believes that the popularity of theatre has increased over the years. Amal points out how theatre festivals that have been held recently have seen huge footfall. “People are standing in queue to get tickets and passes. That gives us a lot of hope,” he adds.
Amal is also a theatre trainer who conducts workshops and runs a children’s theatre group called ‘Thalir’ at Mavelikara, Divya’s home-town.
Sunday’s performance will start at 6.30 pm.
