“It’s a play that can be adapted to the audience and space,” says actor-director MV Vetri. The name of the play, Adavu , is derived from the basic steps of dance forms. In the context of this play, the form is Therukoothu.
Vetri, who had always been interested in different art forms, was working with the Puducherry-based Indianostrum theatre group for over two years. “We had lots of workshops on Kalaripayattu, Devarattam, Therukoothu and lots more. After I came back to Chennai, my home town, I decided to follow up on Therukoothu. It is one of Tamil Nadu’s ancient arts. As I studied it, I decided to create a play around it.” While the songs have been composed by Kalavai Kumarasamy, Vetri and the other actors developed the theatrical portions.
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The crew comprises seven actors, three musicians and two people to handle the backstage. So far the play has had nine shows; three in Coimbatore and six in Chennai. “We have another six coming up this month,” says Vetri. “We got a lot of positive feedback with the earlier shows. Many people became very emotional and felt bad that such a beautiful art form has been neglected. Getting people to come to the play is one thing but getting a reaction like this makes us very happy.” The play is not a static one, he says. “When we performed in February, it was around 30 minutes. Now it clocks at just under an hour. We’ve been developing the play as we go along.”
While the show at Perks School will be an open air performance, the play can be changed depending on the need. “If someone wants a 20-minute performance in an auditorium, we can pull out specific parts. If there is a request for only a therukoothu performance, we can do that as well. We have the basic form but we will tweak it, according to the kind of audience. Our aim is to spread awareness. What we’re doing is therukoothu; we have not changed the flavour of the music or tampered with the art form but we introduce it in a modern way so that people understand.”
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This is possible because Vetri only has a basic framework for the play. “During the rehearsal, we don’t have a rigid script. I just ask the actors to react to the situation and then we give a structure to whatever emerges.” The rehearsals are pretty rigorous. “We start at 9.00 am and go on till 6.00 pm. Right now, another Chennai-based group called Thiraipattarai has kindly given us the space to practise. They begin with a small ritual of lighting a lamp — “nothing to do with religion,” says Vetri firmly, “the idea is to shed light on theatre” – a physical warm up which includes kalari and body movement, voice training for an hour and then the actual rehearsal.
His actors were selected after a three-day workshop. Vetri admits that keeping the same set of actors is a difficult task. “People have commitments,” he says. “It is difficult to start training someone from the beginning but we don't have an option.”
When asked about straddling the worlds of theatre and film, Vetri says it’s quite easy to balance both. “It's a question of planning,” he says. “I know about my theatre shows well in advance so I can arrange my schedule accordingly. Of course, many actors do not give as much importance to theatre as they do to films.” Theatre needs to be promoted, he says passionately. “We need more spaces to rehearse and to perform. We need more people to watch. Theatre should begin from school. Encourage more drama clubs in colleges. All this confidence-building, soft skills training, team building exercises that is being done in the corporate world use various aspects of the performing arts. It's all theatre. Instead of just skimming the surface; we need to look deeper.” Finally, he says, the government should support performing arts but “first we need to get our act together.”
Info you can use
Udalveli and Theatre Akku present Adavu, a play based on Therukoothu
April 21 at 6.30 pm at Perks School, Trichy Road
April 22 at 6.30 pm, Government Higher Secondary School, Sackatha, Aravenu, Kotagiri
Entry free. Open to all age groups
Contact 9894350810 (Coimbatore) and 9442271525 (Kotagiri) for more details