Theatre was Sadhana to her

Veenapani Chawla who broke new ground in experimental theatre, fusing traditional themes with unconventional treatment, did not envision theatre as a propaganda vehicle.

“More and more theatre has been used as a means for political action, for changing people’s thinking. But personally I don’t agree with it,” Chawla once told Sivapriya, a teacher who approached her in connection with a doctoral thesis project.

Ms. Sivapriya recalls Chawla saying that she identified with the anti-propoganda position of Polish theatre director Jerzy Grotowski.

“A person who is working in the theatre has to work like Sadhak, inside himself. He has to become almost like a mystic. Theatre should not preach. It should not be dogmatic. Rather, it should be kind, affectionate, and gentle…a beautiful state that the performer has achieved within should reach out to the audience and elevate them,” Chawla had told her.

The theatre exponent also had a clear take on blending tradition and the experimental in theatre.

“I would say the really traditional thing about my work is that I have studied the traditional form,” Chawla told her. And, Chawla would underscore the point that her pursuit of Koodiyattam was driven by the interest in the whole notion of how Bhava comes out as a particular pattern of breath, its rhythmic cycles. “So using these breath and rhythm patterns, I have tried to create an internal process for the actor. That is the traditional part of my plays, I think,” was how she explained it.

Chawla always regarded epics and myths as an extremely powerful tool for theatre, for all expressions of art. This is evident in her theatrical deconstruction of Bhima (Impressions of Bhima) and the extrapolation of male-female polarity in Brihannala to one of time and space, of seeing and knowing.

Another instance is in one of her most celebrated plays, The Hare and the Tortoise, which explores the parallels in the fates of Arjuna and Hamlet —how their souls reach similar point of sensitivity in crisis, Ms. Sivapriya recalled.

According to Ms. Sivapriya, while Chawla never fancied herself or her theatre as feminist, the life perspectives within the construct of remaining single, led her to empathise with women who were poor and strive for their empowerment. In a broader sense, Chawla was more concerned with society’s humaneness and how we could evolve into better human beings, she recalled.