What do linguistics, Indology, Sanskrit and anthropology have in common? The answer may be Koodiyattam, going by the recent festival at Nepathya, Moozhikkulam, organised by David Shulman and his delegation comprising some 20 academics.
The nine-day festival, where a newly choreographed Bhasa play was performed, was part of Shulman’s engagement with Koodiyattam, which started in 2007. Shulman, an expert in Telugu, Tamil and Sanskrit among others, and a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, says his first love was, and still is, Telugu poetry. He accidentally stumbled upon Koodiyattam.
“During a visit to Kerala, several years ago, for the launch of a book on Jewish, Malayalam songs, I happened to watch a Nangiarkoothu performance at the event. After the event, I metIndu G, who was performing ‘Poothanamoksham’ that day. I also got to meet her husband Margi Madhu. They helped me understand Koodiyattam and how this theatre tradition dates back centuries.”
Nepathya Arathy, Indu G and Margi Anjana S Chakyar in Vichinnankam Koodiyattam | Photo Credit: Achuthan T.K.
That meeting with the couple behind Nepathya Moozhikkulam led to Shulman’s deeper involvement with the art form, including organising performances of plays. “I remember Madhu and Indu telling me that due to financial constraints they do not get to do full-length plays despite being trained to perform for 60, 90 or 120 hours. It was like playing the Tchaikovsky violin concerto and stopping after three notes,” says Shulman, who decided to do something about it.
He approached Menachem Magidor, president of Hebrew University, a mathematician and humanist. “I told him there is this tradition in Kerala hanging by a thread and asked for support to take my students to India to witness a full performance. It was amazing; he gave me the money.”
The next year, in 2008, Nepathya performed ‘Asokavanikankam’, Act 5 of ‘Ascharyachoodamani’. All the seven Acts of ‘Ascharyachoodamani’ (Wondrous crest jewel) by playwright Sakthibhadran, unarguably the most important play in the Koodiyattam repertoire, were performed for Shulman and his students. In 2017, they completed seeing the seventh and final Act.
Margi Madhu in Vichinnankam Koodiyattam | Photo Credit: Achuthan T.K.
This year, from August 27, ‘Vichinnankam’, the first Act of Bhasa’s ‘Pratimanatakam’ was performed at Nepathya Moozhikkulam for nine days, or some 36 hours to be more precise. ‘Pratima’, along with ‘Ascharyachoodamani’ and Bhasa’s ‘Abhishekanatakam’, make up the Ramayana in Koodiyattam. Madhu, Nepathya’s creative director, who wrote a new attaprakaram (actor’s manual) and directed the play, says he chose to do ‘Vichinnankam’ as it has not been performed in recent times.
Authentic format
Áccording to Madhu, David Shulman and his delegation played a major role in reviving these performances. Though the late Appukuttan Nair had presented ‘Choodamani’ in full at Margi, Thiruvananthapuram, and a similar effort was made at Ammannur Gurukulam, Irinjalakuda, where ‘Abhishekanatakam’ was presented, such full-length performances remained restricted to a few temples as part of rituals. But with Shulman’s support Nepathya has presented ‘Choodamani’ in full over seven years, with one Act being performed every year. The longest was ‘Anguleeyankam’, the sixth Act, which lasted 29 days.
Explaining what drew him to Koodiyattam, Shulman says, “I am a philologist, which means I am not merely interested in the language; I am interested in the text, its meanings, culture and ideas.” He points out how Koodiyattam goes beyond the text. The translation of the text to the stage changes it in many ways. Indeed, the performance text is the true foundation, by no means a mere extension of the written one.
He finds Koodiyattam unique in several respects. “The Koodiyattam artiste has the liberty to pick verses from other texts and use in his Nirvahanam segments while writing the Attaprakaram or performing. Its continuous performance tradition of at least 500 years, as shown clearly by the old text Natankusa, its non-linear plot development that goes against the principles of Natya Shastra, and its theatrical device pakarnnattam or transformative acting, where the same actor performs multiple characters, are all major features of this amazing art form.”
The author, a retired journalist, writes on Kerala’s performing arts.
