The plays of octogenarian Thuppettan cannot be slotted as a particular genre despite their apparent simplicity, a Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) seminar on performing arts noted.
Even as they teem with characters who mirror common people from varied walks of Kerala’s village life, their presentation techniques are a far cry from the state’s mainstream theatre culture, said the speakers at the two-day festival organised as part of the performing-arts segment of KMB’14.
The short works of 86-year-old Thuppettan, who stopped writing a quarter century ago, do not directly speak of existentialism or consumerism, yet they have undercurrents of such themes that are all the more relevant now, scholars observed.
The festival was inaugurated on Saturday evening by veteran theatre-person Nelson Fernandes, who felicitated Thuppettan (formally Mamunnu Subrahmanian Namboothiri). Also, three of his short plays— Award , Double Act Athava Kunjambuvinte Chanchattangal and Swaapaharanam Athava Ellavarum Argentinakku —all by Natyashastra, Kadambazhipuram and directed by Naripatta Raju, were staged.
A light-and-sound production on Thuppettan, titled ‘Birjosh’ and conceived by P.P. Ramachandran and cartoonist Sunil Pablo Nambu, was presented.
