A good storyteller always makes the listener feel empowered. In one of the stories from a collection of folk tales compiled into a book by A.K. Ramanujam, the listener of Ramayana is so empowered by the story that he enters it, to help Hanuman find Rama’s ring that he would have dropped into the ocean on his way to Lanka. Paanchali , performed in Kannada by theatre person B. Jayashree and Bharathanatyam dancer Sathyanarayana Raju was one such empowering retelling of Mahabharatha in the voice of Draupadi. They swore their loyalty neither to the form of Bharathanatyam nor to theatre but to the act of reaching to the audience with their story. Yet the storytelling was rich in genre – dance, music, drama, melodrama, magical realism – all were invoked with timing and spontaneity.
Paanchali was also characteristic for its play between structure and fluidity. Though probably planned and rehearsed multiple times, the performers’ engagement with the audience, with the musicians and their presence to the space in the auditorium thoroughly rooted the performance its context. This performance also stood out for the complexity of its narration and the multiplicity of roles assumed by the performers. The story weaves in and out of the present time and the time of the epic Mahabharatha with the demi god – Shakti devata acting as the node connecting the two.
While one was a female performer and the other a male one, it did not determine the roles they played at all. Panchaali was alternatively played by both performers which also influenced their relationship as two women who could be present in the other person’s life experiences. This also echoed the feminist refrain that marked the transition between two episodes; that a woman has to be the strength of the other woman. The complexity of the narrative was also evident in how all the episodes represented – Panchaali’s Vastraharan, Swayamvar, her conversation with her father, Ashwathama killing her sons after Kurukshetra – remain inconclusive. The pain experienced in one episode only acts as a trigger to recall the other. This performance too remains open ended with Panchaali’s realization that all of her life has been about being a pawn for settling scores and seeking revenge for men. In its concluding remarks one hears a question and a resounding resolution in Panchaali’s voice “Was there anything in my life that was done for love? This has to end, but one can’t wait for a man to come and end it for us. We have to end it ourselves.”
