Shraddha’s latest venture is folk theatre - Kattaikkuttu. “Shraddha has presented many genres - mime, contemporary theatre and so on. We wanted to provide a platform for Koothu this time,” says Shivaji Chaturvedi. Krishnamurthy of Shraddha first saw a Kattaikkuttu performance at a birthday party. “I loved the energy behind the performance,” he says. Later other members of Shraddha also visited Punjarasantankal village, where the Kattaikkuttu Sangam, founded by P. Rajagopal, is located.
The Kattaikkuttu Young Professionals Company, one of the two theatre companies founded by Rajagopal, will be presenting ‘Draupadi Kuravanji,’ for Shraddha. In villages, the play runs to nine hours, but for the Shraddha show, Rajagopal has edited it to 90 minutes.
What have they cut out, in the process of editing? “We have retained many of the songs, and it is possible to follow the story just through the songs. But for those unaccustomed to this kind of play, I have also included some dialogue, to supplement the story being told through the songs,” explains Rajagopal.
This is a question that keeps coming up repeatedly - why do they call their art Kattaikkuttu? Why not therukoothu? “Therukoothu performers dance along, when the processional deity of the Mariamman temple is taken out on the streets. But koothu is not performed on the move,” clarifies Rajagopal.
But why the ‘Kattai’ prefix? “That’s because all our ornaments are made of wood, Kalyana murungai, to be precise,” says Rajagopal. “People think I use the name Kattaikkuttu upon the suggestion of my wife Hanne,” he laughs. “I met her only in 1987, but even before that I used to refer to my art as Kattaikkuttu.”
I have seen a few of their performances and I know that they abhor microphones. Urban audiences, however, are used to theatre where there is amplification. So have they decided to compromise? “No,” says Hanne, Rajagopal’s wife, emphatically. “Microphones tend to play up the sound of the mukha veena and this results in distortion of the music. Anyway, when we performed at Music Academy, we didn’t use microphones.”
What does Shraddha have to say to that, I ask Krishnamurthy. “We’ll have to have amplification. At The Music Academy, they performed in the smaller auditorium. But at Narada Gana Sabha, it will be in the bigger auditorium. Their voices may not carry to the last rows,” he says. “We’ll have a grand rehearsal with mikes, and then see how we can balance things out, without any distortion.”
“Some people wrongly classify koothu as dance. It is not. It is theatre,” says Hanne. How well do audiences in the city respond to koothu? “Koothu is like any classical art. You have to develop a taste for it. For example, for the first time listener, Carnatic music may not be that appealing. You have to attend many concerts before you begin to appreciate it. It’s the same with Koothu. You can’t say after one performance that you couldn’t understand it. You must watch it a few times, and let it grow on you.”
Shraddha is presenting Kattaikkuttu Young Professionals Company’s ‘Draupadi Kuravanji’ at Narada Gana Sabha on March 13, 14, 15 and 16, at 7 p.m.
The urban (dis)connect
Hanne says she often comes across people who make insensitive remarks that koothu is a dying art form, and that it is the people in the city who give it a lease of life.
“First, it is not dying. As for theatre persons in cities using aspects of koothu in their presentations, I think it is more patronising than anything else. What does it do for the artists in the villages, who have invested mind, body and soul in the art? They actually get sidelined when the features of koothu are borrowed and used by city based groups. It’s like taking the shell of the art, and discarding the soul. In fact, I would go so far as to say that while they may claim it helps to preserve the art form, it may in fact end up destroying it.”
