Macbeth, with the energy of streets

The three witches will hail Macbeth in a high-pitched language of therukoothu artistes and Lady Macbeth will be adapting their powerful body language, while persuading her husband to murder King Duncan.

The murder scene may resemble Duryodhana vadham and the Shakespearean soliloquies will be laced with pathos unique to the folk form of Tamil Nadu. The adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth in therukoothu form will be staged at the Museum Theatre at Egmore on December 25 by the students of the National School of Drama (NSD).

“Before appearing before the audience, a total of 25 second-year students of NSD will attend a 40-days workshop, learning the nuances of

therukoothu ,” said actor M. Shanmugaraja of the Nizhal Theatre Centre, who is coordinating the workshop. Mr. Shanmugaraja said the play would be staged in Hindi in eight centres in Delhi.

The workshop will begin at the Joe Beach Retreat Centre on East Coast Road on Saturday. Prof. K.S. Rajendran of the NSD said the objective of the workshop was to create a “complete Indian actor”, and training in traditional performing art was very important.

“An active body is one of the important elements of therukoothu and tremendous energy overflows from the body of the artistes. Besides absorbing the energy, we will take the colours, musical instruments and theatrical elements from therukoothu ,” Mr Rajendran said.

The students would be trained by Purisai Sambantha Thambiran. As part of the workshop,

therukoothu with different regional variations will be performed at the Museum Theatre between December 1 and 5.