The Modern Malayalam Theatre - V.

M Ramachandran A Brief Survey The origins of Malayalam theatre goes back into the past, to the religious, semi-religious and secular rites and rituals of the earliest Dravidian communities and tribes. Throughout the history of mankind there can be found the traces of songs and dances and rituals in honour of the unknown forces of nature, Gods and Goddesses performed by priests and worshippers and of the portrayals of the struggle between man and the mysterious forces of nature, Gods and heroes. Even now similar ceremonies can be discovered among primitive tribal communities and man's affinity for traditions has a particular bearing on the broad connotation of the term 'theatre'. The subtle differences between the fundamental components of what is known to be 'ritual', 'folk' and what is termed 'theatre' cannot be lost sight of. Judged from any angle, 'theatre' in any socio-cultural and political condition, is a spectacle meant to be performed. The common feature in theatrical art and in traditional ritual and folk forms of art is the element of spectacle which, in the last instance, is 'situation specific'. But, even in this respect, a good deal of divergence in the methodology of exposition and performance and in the design of structure cannot go unnoticed. The structure and performance of the spectacle in a ritual or a folk form have their roots running deeper into the depths of social myths upon which they are based. And these myths are mixed up with the life pattern of the ancient communities and their specific inter-relationship between the social formations of the period in which they lived and also with their productive relations and the existing productive forces. All these primary factors are dialectically related with their elemental sensibilities, their concept of Gods and Goddesses, their codes of virtue and vice, their awareness of truth and beauty and their interaction with nature and the cosmos as it were. We see that the spectacle of a particular ritual and folk performance in a particular sociocultural matrix has an ethos of its own, its own elemental colour and social necessity. Moreover, to those who practice these forms, the performances become a meaningful social activity and the seasonal enactments aim at the full and absolute participation of the village communities concerned. It is to them, the inevitable observance of certain vital principles of the structure of their collective life. The argument that theatrical performance can never evince the above mentioned collective characteristics of the ritualistic and folk performance

has to be scrutinized scientifically if one attempts to chart out the historical evolution of Malayalam theatre. Moreover, the methodological scaffolding for such an analysis has to shape itself and develop from the structure of collective feelings and societal dimension of the elemental theatrical features of rituals and folk performances. It is in this context that one has to get at the roots of a seminal observation made by Galvano Della Volpe who was essentially concerned with the problem of rehabilitating the inherently rational and intellectual nature of aesthetic experience. He observes, "The essential issue was brought to the surface by no less than Goethe on the one hand and Marx on the other. For, it was Goethe who declared that 'the highest form of lyric is decidedly historical'.........and it was Marx who argued that Greek art pre-supposes Greek mythology", that is "nature and the social forms already elaborated....by the popular imagination", and concluded that "the difficulty for the materialist lies not in understanding that the Greek (figurative) arts and epic are bound up with certain forms of social development" but rather in the fact that "they shall afford us artistic pleasure and that in a certain respect they count as norm and as an unattainable model." Della Volpe reads Marx's formulation as an indication of the historical and social bonds of a work of art which do not condition it mechanically and externally, but must in some way be part of the particular kinds of "pleasure" which the work and not some other object affords us. The methodological infrastructure employed in the study of Malayalam theatre, in the broadest sense, incorporates the historical-materialist theoretical framework mentioned above. Thus, the basic premise is that, the sort of living sediment, the historical 'humus' whose organic presence in a work of art of theatre performance has properly to be demonstrated by the materialist, is to be traced back to its concrete-rational core. For, that is the sole medium within the work through which we may assume that reality, as a complex of ideologies and the facts and institutions of every kind, is articulated. Thus a historical materialist and dialectical analysis of the development of Malayalam theatre could provide us immense insights into the problematics of Kerala's cultural performance history, which was time and again being mystified and vulgarised by the so-called idealist intellectual gymnasts and foreign aided cultural industrialists of Kerala and elsewhere. It is in this context that we have to look at the process of appropriation of the collective aesthetico-theatrical experience of the primitive communities of Kerala and the development of a coercive aesthetics of oppression and subjugation which through the centuries had continued its struggle to maintain dominance. The equality and democratic collectivity of the pre-historic communities of Kerala had been completely destroyed by the newly emerged,

undemocratic social apparatus based on 'high' and 'low' castes. Social life in Kerala was in no way fundamentally different from the rest of India. Kerala's caste organization was, if anything, even more unequal than in other parts of India; the system of untouchability here was far more rigorous. This social transformation took place under the cultural leadership of Brahmanism which brought the newly emerging strata of the intellectual, administrative and other elite of society on par with their counterparts in the rest of India. Unlike in several parts of north India, Kerala never had a non-Hindu ruling 'elite' down to the establishment of the British rule. The Jew, the Christian and the Muslim had their respective places in the socio-political set-up, but they were subordinated to the dominant class caste which was caste Hindu. The political-administrative system was thus one in which the non-Hindu and low-caste Hindus were second class citizens, over and above these differences in the social organization is the big difference in economy and polity which marks Kerala off from the rest of India- the difference arising out of the evolution of private property in land. Thus was created a system of feudal landlordism, the system under which the landlord and other categories of non-cultivating tenants had each of them, his allotted share of the produce. This system was subsequently modified and perfected by the British, the princely states and rulers of independent India. It was on the soil of this system of feudal landlordism that the various tribes and castes inhabiting present day Kerala started developing into a linguistic-cultural community. It is true that most of the cultural and art forms arose within the narrow compass of one caste or group of castes belonging to separate class categories. The classical literary works of Malayalam were mostly produced by Hindu authors and dealt with Hindu religious themes; so were kathakali, koodiyattom and other arts mainly of Hindu origin. It is also true that most of these national literary and art places were confined to upper caste (class) circles. Nevertheless, these works of literature and art forms have laid the basis for the creation of a style and technique that go beyond all castes and communities; they are truly national. Moreover, men of culture, drawn, of course, from the upper classes but of all castes began to appreciate and even adopt this style and technique in their own particular caste or religious circles. The chavittunatakam of the Christians is a simplified adaptation of the kathakali form of the Hindu. This flowering of literature and arts was nothing but the expression of that 'community of economic life, economic cohesion' which, as is understood by historical materialists, is one of the characteristics of a nation. Thus was emerging, slowly and through the generations, that prerequisite for the formation of a nationality-the national market. As is well

known, it was this that which attracted first the Arabs, then the Portuguese, then again the Dutch, the French and lastly the British, to the coastal towns of Kozhikode, Kochi, Kollam etc., where they opened their factories and started trade. The impact of this on the political-administrative system was tremendous. For, the growth of trade necessitated a steadily expanding home market which, in its turn, made petty kingdoms ineffective and outdated. The progress had to begin and very obviously did begin with all the inherent contradictions shaping it into differing and conflicting designs. The question arises then, that if this is the case, how is one to explain the peculiar development of Kerala theatre and its performance patterns which are, at one and the same time, integrally and dialectically related with the socio-political formations? Theatre history, in the ultimate analysis, is the history of performance and performance of any kind is a socio-cultural act. Basing oneself on the assumption that all cultural artifacts are socially symbolic acts, one has to realize that in order to articulate the past historically, it is not sufficient to recognize it "the way it was". As Walter Benjamin says, "it means to seize hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger". Thus, the inevitability of radical perspective. In this a sense, the venture is essentially a demythificatory critical attempt and hopefully enable one to locate the sort of sedimented human experience embedded at the core of Kerala performance and theatrical patterns. At the outset, one has to disregard the proposition put forward by most of the eminent established theoreticians that Kerala theatre has only a history of hundred years beginning from 1882 with the publication of Kerala Varma Valiya Koil Tampuran's translation of Kalidasa's Sakuntalam. This highly academic point of view discards the dialectical development of human performance which in itself has an uninterrupted narrative mode. This uninterrupted mode of human performance begins with people singing and dancing freely in the open air. This was communal celebration in which all could participate and express themselves using their body, voice and mind. The unconscious urge of the individual to merge himself or herself with the collective unconscious becomes very prominent in this socially symbolic act. The performance pattern of these socially symbolic acts still retain their elemental characteristics even in modern theatre performances, though there exists a concrete barrier between the performers and the audience. The master code of the collective which ultimately is determined by the specific social formation serves as an unbroken chain of human experience which gets represented in the ideological framework of any type of theatrical performance. The limitations of a study of Kerala performance patterns are quite obvious in the sense that the performance

patterns of the past can only be reconstructed from a study of myths and ritualistic practices of which many have become obsolete and those that remain have undergone drastic transformations. Kerala culture, according to available records and traditions never underwent any convulsions violent enough to bring about any complete metamorphosis. Even at the earliest periods of which we have any recordand this is pre-Christian in point of time Keralites were carrying on a very brisk trade with many countries far and near. When it is remembered that Kerala culture was constantly brought into contact with a number of distinct and different cultures, one can naturally expect to find cultural assimilation and cultural superimposition, resulting in a new synthesis of conflicting civilisations. We also find, added to these, the existence of a large number of 'genuine primitive survivals' in almost every aspect of our social, religious and political life. Thus the cultural antiquities open up a field of inquiry at once interesting and important to the student of art and culture. One aspect in which this wide and varied culture has found expression is the stage and performance which had made its valuable contribution to the sum total of Indian culture. The orthodox section of this stage which has a religious atmosphere attached to it and is, therefore, beyond the gaze of profane eyes, plays no inconsiderable role in helping the reconstruction of the ancient Sanskrit stage - the active traditions of which have died out elsewhere in India. No less important is the vernacular section in which beginnings may be found revealed of the art of dramatic representation, beginning probably primitive in character but nonetheless significant for that. It is here that we are again confronted by a serious question about the continuity of Malayalam theatre tradition. Malayalam as a distinct language had its formulation almost a thousand years back and Malayalam drama in the form of the texts written by the Sanskrit dramatists and European dramatists, has only a history of hundred years. How will one account for this 'Great Gap' in the history of Malayalam drama? Indian theatre or Sanskrit theatre has a tradition, as every one knows, which goes back thousands of years. Kerala which had been closely linked with the Brahmanical tradition for centuries had to wait till 1898 to find the first dramatic text to be produced, that too a translation of Kalidasa's Sakuntalam. This does not mean that Keralites had no theatre movement of their own. On the other hand, the tradition of Sanskrit drama find itself manifested only in Kerala in the form of koodiyattom and lot of Sanskrit plays have been written by Keralites in the past.

But, there was not even a single drama in Malayalam till 1898 when all other areas of literature were making headway. The simple reason usually attributed is that of the dominance of Sanskrit and Brahmanical ideologies over the vernacular. It may be true that Brahmanical dominance might have discouraged every development based on the vernacular culture. But the change in the sensibility which came to manifest itself in the people for the emerging language made the dominant ideological machinery of the upper castes disturbingly silent. Thus Ezhuthassan could walk with his head held high even after composing Adhyathma Ramayana in Malayalam. But the dominant theatre tradition and its audience were purely Brahmanical in its orientation. They were satisfied by their koothu and koodiyattom and there was no necessity for them to come outside, and be part of the ordinary folk. So the upper caste intellectuals never went for writing plays in Malayalam. The majority had at the same time their own forms which were highly participatory in nature and their theatrical urges were satisfied by the performance patterns based on folk and ritual practices of the people. Even before 1882 the Portuguese infiltration into the social life of Kerala in general and the Christian community in particular created certain performance patterns known asgenova natakam and caralman charitam; which were just imitations of Christian religious plays of Europe. The intention behind the creation of these new theatrical forms was to bring about parallel art forms immitating the classical Hindu religious theatre forms like kathakali and koodiyattom. These alternative Christian theatrical forms were much more accessible to the common folk. The result was that the complex technicalities and structure of the feudal arts forms gave way to much more simpler theatrical experience for the people. But these innovations could not provide any lasting contribution towards the development of modern Malayalam theatre. The origin of modern Malayalam theatre which took place in the second half of nineteenth century finds itself distanced by atleast hundred years from the Christian theatrical forms. It was indeed a major event in the performance history of Kerala that a Sanskrit play got translated into Malayalam, (the hybrid variety of Malayalam which is known as manipravalam) for the first time by a person belonging to the feudal class structure. The cultural importance of this even along with its influence upon many educated intellectuals of the period cannot go unnoticed. The ideological underpinnings of the innumerable translations of plays from Sanskrit and English created an atmosphere which was very much in accordance with the value systems of ruling class. It must also be remembered that almost all the translations were not performance-oriented and the reason for this can also be attributed to the dominance of theatrical forms like kathakali which could fulfil the theatrical urges of the upper classes in general.

A major change in the style of producing a dramatic text with a newly structured performance pattern which is known assangeetha natakam (musical drama) is worth mentioning in this context. In the history of modern Malayalam performance patterns, this new development which had spread over to Kerala from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka demands particular attention from a socio-political perspective. This new mode which became very popular throughout Kerala makes one think about the cultural climate that necessitated such an extremely popular theatrical form. The verse form of this performance pattern which developed slowly was very much based on the vernacular Malayalam with its highly flexible metrical pattern and this was really a major break through in the performance history of Kerala. In 1889, Chathukutty Mannadiar translated Ramabadradikshita's Janaki Parinayam and Bhavabhuti's Uttara rama charitam, which stood even above the translation of Kerala Varma's Sakuntalam. The language employed by Mannadiar was highly relaxing and acceptable to the majority than the intellectualised Sanskrit/Malayalam of Kerala Varma. Some original plays were based on themes from epics and stories from history. Thottakkad Ikkavamma's Subhadrarjunam, Natuvattachan Namboodiri's Bhagavadoodu, Kunhikkuttan Tampuran's Lakshmana sangam, Varghese Mapila's Ebrayakutty based on the Old Testament are all worth mentioning in this context. K.C. Keshava Pillai's Sadarama and T.C. Achutha Menon'sSangeethanyshadham; Kuttamath Kanniyoor Krishna Kurup's Balagopalan were the most popular sangeethanatakams of Kerala. The effervescence in this form of theatre activity was inspired by the famous actor Thiruvattar Narayana Pillai who organized the first professional theatre company manomohanam in the south of Kerala. In central Kerala Chathukutty Mannadiar gave shape to rasikaranjini natana sabha. A new theatre culture and performance practice inspired by the highly populist and commercial musical drama movement of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka was able to become successful in many respects. In a society subjugated and oppressed by the ideological machinery of the British Empire in collaboration with the feudal landlord system in Kerala made the majority seek relief in cheap entertainments and performance practices. But in the north of Kerala this musical drama movement had a different orientation other than purely being commercial. Vidwan P. Kelu Nair's (Pakkanar Charitam, Lanka Dahanam, Paduka Pattabhishekam, Srikrishna leela, Kabeerdasa Charitam, Vivekodayam) plays and their presentations were very popular especially in Malabar in the 20's. The sangeetha nataka performance pattern in Malabar popularised by Vidwan P. Kelu Nair, Kuttamath Kunniyur Kunhikrishna Kurup(Harischandracharitam, Devayanee-charitam etc.) Ananthan Nair

(Kuchelagopalam), Kunhambu Kurup (Vydarbhivasudevem, Amsumathidha ramagupta etc.) and a host of others in collaboration with great actors like Rasikashiromani P. Koman Nair, C.U.K. Nambiar, Malabar Raman Nair stands apart mainly in one respect from the tradition. One can obviously find certain elements like the affinity for themes from epics and the dominance of karnatic music in the sangeetha nataka tradition of Kerala. But in Malabar this performance pattern had its roots in the turbulent struggles for national liberation and most of the playwrights of this form were involved in one way or another in the national liberation struggle. Most of them had the experience of being in prison for participating in the struggles of the period. The newly emerged theatre practice, they thought, would inspire the people to make their contributions towards the transformation of Kerala society in particular and Indian society in general. People, started feeling that they have had enough of kathakali, koodiyattom, tullal and all other folk and ritual forms as a consequence of the development of new productive forces and relations which were oppressive in form and content. The new theatre practice was by and large highly communicative and it was for the first time that a performance pattern went straight into the people's sensibility, irrespective of their caste, creed, religion or class. Lot of play-wrights started working on themes similar to that of the Tamil musical drama purely for commercial reasons. There were others who wanted to have a performance pattern which came over to Kerala from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka to be employed consciously for the transformation of society. Thus, the new developments and upheavals in the performing arts of Kerala which started in the last decades of nineteenth century paved the way for the flowering of a new cultural synthesis and within a period of ten to fifteen years more than two hundred plays were performed many a time throughout the length and breadth of Kerala. It is at this juncture that the play Chakkichangaram by Munshi Rama Kurup made a fierce attack against this onslaught of the new type of performance pattern. It is against the vulgarisation of taste that Rama Kurup took arms against. The play was in the form of an English farce and it had the aim of cleaning the taste and sensibility of the upper middle class which was being polluted by the sub-culture of the Tamil musical drama and the imitations in Malayalam based on them which were becoming very popular. If we look deeper into the social structure that produced a new dramatic sensibility in the south of Kerala which provoked Munshi Rama Kurup, we could find that those who invited the commercial theatre companies to perform were people belonging to the upper strata of society. The audience will sit according to their ranks. All the 'inferiors' in the society will flock at the back of the open 'auditorium'. The upper

class women and their attendents will sit themselves at the doors and balcony of their traditional homes (from where they had watched the traditional kathakali and koodiyattompreviously). The actors in their highly ornamental costumes will appear on the stage and salute the upper class section of the audience. They will force themselves to locate the lords and the local chieftains in the front row and give special salutations to them. In such a performance atmosphere, it is no wonder that the structure of the performance will do justice only to the taste of the upper class. The value systems of the leisured class will be glorified and the lower classes will find themselves mocked at to the utmost satisfaction of the superior class. The most sophisticated Munshi Rama Kurup himself made fun of chakki andchangaran who happened to represent the lower orders of the society. The tendency to look down upon household servants and those who do menial jobs and to make them targets of laughter and derision in theatre is not a new cultural phenomenon which we find in modern plays and films, but as old as Munshi Rama Kurup and his upper class ideological make-up. Moreover, cultural practice in the vernacular was looked at with contempt, by those belonging to the upper strata but the social forces that unchained the human energy in this particular period was beyond the control of the ruling class alliance of the British and the regional monarchies. It is to be noted that even as early as 1880's when the commercial theatre practice based on sangeetha nataka tradition was making its headway in the south of Kerala, in the north Malabar and Malabar in general this tradition was being nurtured with a radical perspective. This radical development in performance practice, it can be rationally argued, did exert great influence upon the progressive theatre movement of Kerala in general which started with V.T. Bhattathiripad in 1929. By 1900 one could visualize a gradual shift in the structure of sensibility of the people of Kerala, especially the educated middle class and the progressive minority. The socio-political climate was slowly becoming tense as a result of the people's movement for national liberation gaining momentum. This can be felt in the popular medium of literary creation, the novel, of O. Chandumenon's Indulekha (1889) which tried to listen to the changing pulse of the times. Student struggles were beginning to take shape under the leadership of G.P. Pillai and supported by intellectuals like C.V. Raman Pillai and educated middle class slowly entered into the arena of national liberation struggle. The "Malayali Memorial" struggle also radically changed the whole sensibility of the middle class intellectuals of south Kerala and elsewhere. Intellectuals like G.P. Pillai, C.V. Raman Pillai, Swadeshabhimani Ramakrishna Pillai, C. Krishna Pillai and Kumaran Asan in particular started expressing themselves in a different tone and idiom and the

people felt themselves being drawn to an alternative ideological domain which was basically antagonistic towards the hegemonic ideology of Brahmanism and British rulers. In 1903 Sri Narayana Guru, the great social reformer of Kerala unleashed a powerful movement of reformation giving voice to the silent democratic urges of the educated and uneducated backward classes. The dominant ideological framework of the feudal and Brahmanical system which willingly stood subservient to the British ruling class were attacked from different quarters and the social struggles were being thought of as part of national struggle for freedom. The theatrical performance strategies developed during this period is to be examined in the light of the newly emerging social consciousness among the educated and the uneducated. In 1909 Kumaran Asan's Veena Poovu (The Fallen Flower) was a radical break through in the field of Malayalam poetry. Though the force of C.V. Raman Pilla's Kurupilla Kalari (1909) did not in any way open the doors of a new age in the history of Malayalam theatre, it can be considered as a piece which created a change in the form and content of modern Malayalam dramatic representation. C.V. Raman Pillai pushed out the abundance of music and the conventional 'Raja Part' (role of King) from his plays. But the ideological influence of Kochunni Tampuram (Kalyani Natakam) K.C. Keshava Pillai (Lakshmi Kalyanam), and Munshi Rama Kurup (Chakki Changaram) can be felt in the plays of C.V. and the major playwrights of the period E.V. Krishna Pillai, N.G. Keshava Pillai, N.P. Chellappan Nair and T.N. Gopinathan Nair. The unconscious gravitational pull of the upper middle class ideology, in the above mentioned play-wrights did not allow them to look downward and even in the midst of the turbulance created by a new national consciousness, they could not unchain themselves from the ardent devotion towards the Maharaja of Tiruvitamkur. Instead they competed themselves in paying tributes to the Maharaja through their plays. Though these play-wrights brought their plays away from the courtyards of the noble class, their class orientation did not allow them to come down from the ideological layers of the upper middle class. It is indeed unjust if we say that C.V. and associates did not criticise the social norms of the period. What they actually did was to criticise the vulgarities which they found in the upper middle class society. But the ultimate aim of every good character in their plays is a secure job in the government service and the security under the wings of the Maharaja. Their performance patterns cloistered upon the Government offices and the royal families of Tiruvitamkur and the elite upper middle class. The forced exile of Swadeshabhimani Ramakrishna Pillai, the upsurge in the national consciousness just after the World War I and the social reformist movement to eradicate the caste system-all these struggles and upheavals taking place in different levels of Kerala society did not in any way make deeper inroads into the sensibilities of these play wrights. It is

true to some extent that C.V. Raman Pillai managed to absorb the turmoil of the times but to his contemporaries, all these struggles and changes were something beyond their reach just because of their ideological affinities with the ruling elite class. The performance designs and their ideological underpinnings in Malabar was totally different as explained earlier and the reasons for this can be seen in the differing socio-political formation of the region which was directly under the Madras presidency. The seeds of a radical performance practice has been sown already which germinated under the pressures of the anti-feudal and anti-imperialistic struggles. The reason why for the first time in the cultural history of Kerala, the stage and performance became a highly conscious social activity in the hands of social reformers and political activists like V.T. Bhattathiripad, M.R.Bhattathiripad, K.Damodaran and M.P. Bhattathiripad (Premji) is that theatre practice for them was part of the social and political praxis of the period in which they lived. Thus the most vigorous and socially meaningful period in the history of Malayalam performance began for the first time in Kerala from the last phase of the twenties. It must also be remembered at this juncture that in Malabar thesangeetha nataka movement had established a non-commercial and nationalistic base in the twenties and it was in 1929 that the pioneer of this powerful movement, Vidwan P. Kelu Nair had his untimely death. In the south as well, the monotony of the sangeetha natakam was broken in 1930 by one play 'Karuna' an adaptation of Kumaran Asan's famous poetic piece. The adaptation was done by Sri. Brahmavrathan and the great actors Sebastian Kunhu Kunhu Bhagavathar and Ochira Velukutty. This adaptation was able to make a radical breakthrough in the sangeetha nataka tradition and the implication was far reaching as well. It became part of the social reformist movement being led by the precepts of Sree Narayana Guru but the commercial orientation still remained. The year 1929 is most significant in the sense that V.T. Bhattathiripad wrote his play Adukkalayil Ninnu Arangathekku. It was the first play in Malayalam to have a definite and concrete social objective and which was produced in 1929 itself as part of a very powerful social reformist movement led by Namboodiri Yogakshema Sabha. The degenerate Brahmanical ideology and its social structure had its first powerful assault from within for the first time and the most fervent slogan of the period was for the transformation of "Brahmans into human beings". From the 1930's to 1940's Malayalam performance patterns changed so radically that the structure of human experience encapsulated in them underwent thorough transformation from that of the sangeetha nataka style. The most notable among the plays which were produced on behalf of the Yogakshema Sabha are Adukkalayil Ninnu Arangathekku (1929-V.T. Bhattathiripad), Marakkutakkullile

Mahanarakam (1931- M.R. Bhattathiripad) and Rithumathi (1938-M.P. Bhattathiripad). It is no wonder that the very base of the degenerate Namboodiri value system was being shattered once and for all and these three plays had the privilege to do such a 'subversive' social act. The age-old concept of a coercive aesthetics of "divine bliss" and the Brahmanical appropriation of the cultural life and elemental human experience of the majority came to have little significance in the newly evolved performance praxis which clearly was being determined by the social contradictions of the times. Here, art and performance became a highly conscious and rational social activity for the new playwrights who were basically social reformers first and foremost. The shaping spirit of this newly emerged theatre practice with an aggressive aesthetic and performance orientation gave birth to another genre totally new to Malayalam theatre which found its expression in K. Damodaran's Pattabakki (1936). Considered even by bourgeois theoreticians as the first Communist play in Malayalam Pattabakki rooted itself in the anti-feudal consciousness of the people which was getting manifested in the struggles of the peasants against feudal landlordism supported by the British regime. A new structure of human experience, determined, in the last analysis, by the socio-political reality undertook the task of vehemently challenging the hegemonic ideology of the times. The result was the emergence of political theatre in Malayalam in the real sense of the term. This new performance pattern which was basically realistic reached every nook and corner of Kerala to establish a lasting effect upon the future developments in the radical theatre practice of Kerala. It is indeed illuminating to have a glimpse at the overall social background of the origin of radical political theatre movement in Kerala. The first world war and its global implications, the October Socialist Revolution, National Independence Struggle under the leadership of Gandhiji and the radical left, and the revolutionary struggles of the working class and peasants became most powerful in Kerala beginning from the thirtees. The uttaravada bharana prakshobam (the struggle for a responsible government) in Tiruvitamkur, the anti-British and anti-feudal struggles in Malabar came to be co-ordinated. The working class and the peasants along with anti-communal forces and caste equality movements were gaining power to shake the foundations of the state machinery. The movements in which only the educated intellectuals and progressive middle class got involved were creative enough to absorb the vast majority of the toiling masses. In the midst of these massive orientation of the struggles of the people, theatre practice made a sudden leap from the trivial conventions and acted as a very powerful weapon in the hands of the fighting people. Thus, it can be surmised that with K. Damodaran's PattabakkiMalayalam theatre practice came of age in 1937

and the subsequent developments in Kerala theatre very clearly indicates the class-contradictions embedded at the core of the fast changing social formations. The historic struggles which shook the foundations of the British Empire in India during the period 1940 to 1947 had their far-reaching implications in every sphere of the life of the Indian people. The anti-fascist and antiimperialist consciousness which spread throughout the length and breadth of India in particular had its repercussions in the field of culture. For the first time in India, a mass theatre organisation with a national perspective got organised under the leadership of the Communist party of India. Ideological currents of differing perspective began to fight each other for dominance and the theatre practice during the forties in Kerala exhibits this struggle with greater clarity than ever. The later developments in Malayalam theatre with differing ideological bias had been slowly being shaped in the forties. Indian society was becoming ready to face new challenges in every sphere of life. As early as in 1936 when the political arena in Kerala was becoming more and more tense with the peasant landlord antagonism and anti-British movement, the ideological intellectualism of the middle class was struggling to find strategies of containment in various fields of creative activity. A text-oriented translations of European plays began to have a re-emergence with the translations of Ibsen's "Ghosts" by A. Balakrishna Pillai in 1936. It may be argued that this trend had influenced many a playwright and the influence of Ibsen was a major phenmenon which guided the development of a theatre tradition in Malayalam; which although had been getting away from the 'superficial reality' of the times to the 'so called' complexity of the interior life of the individual self. A serious critique of this trend has to be undertaken to analyse the classorientation of the playwrights who idealized the individual to the level of 'vulgarity' when the whole nation was being swept away by the tides of anti-British and anti-feudal struggles. The major playwright who pioneered such a text-oriented movement in Malayalam with the strong support given by the dramatic texts of Ibsen, was N. Krishna Pillai. His Bhagna Bhavanam (1942) was indeed created with a desire to challenge the triviality of the commercial theatre practice which was polluting the sensibility of the people, especially of the south. Malayalam 'drama' became very 'serious' in the hands of N. Krishna Pillai. There were highly talented actors like P.K. Vikraman Nair, who were also dead against the superficial farces being presented and 'enjoyed' by the people. Krishna Pillai's plays were produced with the backbone given by the prominent actors of Tiruvananthapuram. But it must be argued that people in the forties were looking for a theatre practice other than the 'farces' and intellectualized plays of N. Krishna Pillai, it is also to be noted that the tradition of political theatre inaugurated by K. Damodaran's Pattabakki did not have powerful follow ups in the forties

when the national atmosphere was surcharged with the Quit India Movement and worker's strikes on a vast scale. But the creative effort in the field of theatre seems to be curiously aloof. The themes of N. Krishna Pillai's plays do not bear any testimony to the gathering storm. The main burden of the plays of the forties-man-woman relation-reflects the newly acquired consciousness of playwrights like N. Krishna Pillai. The theatre history of the 40's will not be complete if we exclude the intervention of two playwrights, Pulimana Parameswaran Pillai and C.J. Thomas, who were adventurous enough to go beyond the realms of Ibsenist fixation of the period. Pulimana'sSamathwavadi (1944) was a courageous experimentation in theatre practice which can be categorised as the first expressionist play in Malayalam which for many reasons got recognised and produced only in the sixties. C.J. Thomas, whose play written in the forties, Avan Veendum Varunnu (1949), thematically listens to the second world war and tries to sort out one of the crises which disturbed the social life of KeralaAbsentee-husbandism. Here was a playwright who was struggling to interiorise the spirit of Greek Tragedy and this intense personalisation of human experience gave rise to his later plays like, 1128 il crime 27 and Aa manushyan nee thanne which indeed, from a creative perspective paved the way for future theatre of experimentation in Kerala performance practice. From 1942 to 1947 is a period of intense political activity resulting in Indian Independence. With the transfer of power and establishment of Indian Government at the centre and states, things changed rapidly. The inhuman massacre of minorities and the subsequent exchange of population cast a shadow too deep for any other thought and it was in the fifties that the country started settling down. The theatre of the forties in the Indian context raises many intriguing questions yet to be answered not only by our theatre practitioners but also by the cultural historians of India. What is most significant is the necessity felt by the theatre activists and progressive political organizations to have a national theatre organization with a clear-cut national perspective based on anti-fascist and anti-imperialist ideological upsurge in the consciousness of the people of India. Almost all the regional theatre practices had been influenced by this new development in the national consciousness. The mass organizational framework of the Indian National People's Theatre Association (IPTA) contributed to the development of eminent theatre personalities like Manmathanath Rai, K.A. Abbas, Shanti Vardhan, Shambu Mitra, Balraj Sahni Utpal Dutt, Ritwik Ghatak, Dena Gandhi, Habib Tanveer, Sheela Bhatia and many others who later, after the dismemberment of IPTA went in search of individual styles of their own. It was after the transfer of power to the

Indian ruling class that these individuals developed their own theatrical patterns. Kerala theatre and performance in the forties did not listen to the call of the forceful and revolutionary performance patterns which were anti-fascist and anti-imperialist and, all the more, progressively subversive. Instead of this, highly individualised and Europeanorientedexperimentation in the creation of the dramatic texts were the main concern of the prominent play-wrights of the period. But, by 1949, seeds were sown for the future furthering and development of radical theatre practice by progressive play-wrights like Edasseri Govindan Nair (Kootukrishi-1949). The presentation of this play heralded a revitalised and organised theatre culture especially in Malabar. The organized theatre movement in Malabar under the banner of Malabar Kendra Kalasamithi can be looked upon as the logical continuity of the political theatre movement in Kerala inaugurated by K. Damodaran's Pattabakki. Apart from these bright patches the stage in the forties in Kerala was dominated by trivial farces and melodramatic presentations overburdened with music and sentimental songs. But the fifties in Malayalam theatre presents a very different picture and the dominance of the theatre culture of the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) had given impetus to a radical collectivity which shaped innumerable amateur theatre groups in Kerala, mostly under the guidance of the Communist party. The most significant aspect of the impact of IPTA, it can be argued, is that for the first time in Kerala, the Communist party formulated a cultural policy and programmes of its own. What came as a result was another theatre organisation similar to that of Malabar Kendra Kala Samithi: K.P.A.C. (Kerala People's Arts Club) which spearheaded a powerful people's theatre movement in Kerala. The agitprop nature of the most prominent of the plays produced by K.P.A.C., Ningalenne Communistakki, was part and parcel of the Communist movement in Kerala and the performance design of the play had immediate impact upon the audience. The reasons for the unprecedented success of this play may be many, apart from its ban by the state apparatus, Thoppil Bhasi, thus became a cult figure in the world of Malayalam theatre mainly with this play and plays like Surveykallu, Mutiyanaya Puthran, Mooladhanam,Aswamedham etc. Play-wrights like P.J. Antony (Chakravalam) were also moving fast with the fervent times. Thoppil Bhasi whose revolutionary theatre practice had come to a standstill when he diverted his attention from the struggles of the people gaining ground and he slowly switched over to the populist commercial theatre practice, the evidence of which can be seen inPuthiya Akasam Puthiya Bhoomi (1958). In the meanwhile, Malabar Kendra Kala Samithi was developing into a powerful theatrical weapon of the people presenting plays by Cherukad,

K.T. Mohammed, E.K. Ayamu and Mohammed Yoosuf, Thikkodiyan, P.C. Kuttikrishnan and a host of others who became very popular mainly in Malabar. The period from 1950 to 1957 has to be examined in the light of the powerful progressive theatre movement developed by Malabar Kendra Kala Samithi. This theatre movement of the left with definite ideological affinities with the IPTA and having its dynamic nucleus in Kozhikode conducted theatre festivals which influenced the future developments in radical theatre practice in Kerala. In a way, it was the beginning of a cultural renaissance in Malabar under the leadership of Malabar Kendra Kala Samithi, which did not concentrate on theatre practice alone but on all other cultural fronts. It was the era in which the people's library movement - Kerala Grantha Sala Sangham - formulated its programmes which were basically an attempt to raise the consciousness of the people in the villages and almost all the libraries and reading rooms thus conceived had a theatre organization, attached to them. This cultural action for freedom, in the broadest sense, unleashed the hidden potential of the village communities in Malabar. The idea of village theatre gatherings gained momentum and the annual theatre festivals conducted by the Malabar Kendra Kala Samithi were not just theatre festivals but highly participatory social festivals and the plays and performances which revitalized the theatre culture of the people of Malabar need worth mentioning in this context. Jeevitham, Prasavikkatha Amma, Nirahara Samaram, Pazhaya Bandham, Kanyadanam (all by Thikkodiyan), MannumPennum, Thee Kondu Kalikkaruthu (P.C. Kuttikrishnan- Uroob), Tharavatitham, Sneha Bhandhangal, Manushya Hridayangal, Janma Bhoomi, (all by Cherukad); Karavatta Pasu, Ithu Boomiyanu, Velichum Vilakkannveshikkunnu, Manushyan Karagrihathilanu Puthiya Veedu, Rathri Vandikal , Njan Petikkunnu, Chuvanna Gatikaram (all by K.T. Mohammed); Kandam Vecha Kottu (Mohammed Yoosuf); Tharavadum Madissilayum (P.N.M. Alikkoya); Prabhatham Chuvanna Theruvil (A.K. Puthiyangadi) and so many other plays were either meant for presentation during the great theatre festivals or for presenting before village communities. Almost all the efforts in this unprecedented regeneration and socialisation of theatre and cultural practice were directly inspired by the political process of the Communist movement in Kerala in the forties and fifties. The leadership given by this movement has not been able to become hegemonic in the field of culture for a long period and the activities of the Malabar Kendra Kala Samithi ceased to exist even though it has laid the foundation for a fervent amateur theatre movement in Kerala which still retains its spirit to a limited extent. It can be clearly seen that the spirit of this cultural renaissance still inspires the theatre practices mainly in the districts of Kannur and Kozhikode. The ideological undercurrents that sustains such a 'subversive' theatrical potential remains a serious area of socio-political and cultural research.

In the south of Kerala as well, the fifties have given rise to certain progressive trends in theatre culture. The amateur theatre practice was mainly centred upon the plays of T.N. Gopinathan Nair. Another attempt, which did not last for long was the formation of Navasamskara Samithi which reviewed the presentation of play like Avan Veendum Varunnu (C.J. Thomas), what matters most in this context is the active participation of eminent theatre personalities like K.V. Neelankandan Nair, P.K. Veeraraghavan Nair and P.K. Vikraman Nair to accelerate the process of creating a theatre atmosphere which could basically challenge and change the trivial theatrical practices of the times. But the impact of their efforts did not last long even though the stage in Tiruvananthapuram did produce serious presentations like Thoovalum Thoombayum (P.K. Veeraraghavan Nair),Nashtakkatchavadam (C.N. Sreekantan Nair) Kunhali Marakkar (K. Padmanabhan Nair). Commercial theatre practice had a tremendous appeal among the masses especially in the south in the fifties for one reason or other. Just like 1947 in the national context, 1957 marks a turning point in the uninterrupted narrative mode of Kerala performance practice. The transfer of power in 1947 which inspired a sudden leap in the hopes and aspirations of the people of India came to nothing and the newly gained freedom gave great impetus to a creative upsurge and the theatre became powerful weapon in the hands of the people. The state machinery did indeed formulate strategies of containment by organising its own ideological platforms like Kendra Sangeetha Nataka Academy. The revolutionary theatre praxis of the IPTA died down and the era of individualistic theatre practice came to dominate the ideological superstructure of serious theatre attempts. But the fifties in Kerala up to the formation of the first Communist ministry, did in fact provide a firm base for a radical theatre culture which got uprooted in the later fifties. A very clear divide in the political and cultural life of the people of Kerala became wider and wider. The so-called 'liberation struggle' in 1959 with its communal and anti-people ideology came to dominate the intellectual life of the individualist cultural activists. Commercial theatre activity once again started giving trivial entertainment patterns to the masses and a society divided into different ideological domains started doing experiments in theatre practice influenced by decadent European performance patterns. K.P.A.C. which was formally affiliated with the Communist movement slowly drifted away from its original moorings to the sphere of commercial theatre. Another trend setter was N.N. Pillai who formulated highly populist theatre culture which made deeper inroads into the public sphere of a political consciousness of the masses. The only serious venture in the midst of innumerable populist commercial theatre practice was the work of C.N. Sreekantan Nair, who made a landmark in the history of post independent Malayalam theatre with his trilogy based in Ramayana.Kanchana Sita by C.N. initiates a different

performance pattern based on the influences from European and Indian classical theatre tradition. The two other plays in the trilogy written in the seventies Saketham and Lanka Lekshmi have at its rational kernel the major ethnic contradiction, that of Arya and Dravida. The tragic trilogy takes Malayalam theatre and performance to a highly individualistic plane with serious theatrical implications. C.N. Sreekantan Nair in fact had tried to formulate his own performance theory which inspired serious individualist dramatists and theatre activists like G. Sankara Pillai and Kavalam Narayana Panickar to experiment and codify their theatre practices in meaningful ways. The decline of the radical progressive theatre practice after the infamous 'liberation struggle' of 1959 gave added energy and enthusiasm to those theatre activists who were deliberately maintaining strategies of silence when social life in Kerala was being shaken by the forces of degenerate communal and ruling class political ideologies. The political unconscious of these theatre activists were being ruled by the ideology of the ruling class and the result was a concerted effort to push aside 'politics' from theatre. 'Purity of theatre', as for these individualistic intellectuals and playwrights like C.N. Sreekantan Nair, M. Govindan, G. Sankara Pillai, G. Arvindan, M.V. Devan, Kavalam Narayana Panickar and a host of others consisted in abolishing political ideologies that might creep into their creative processes. Theatre or arts in general for them was nothing other than the specific disciplines concerned. This intellectual elitism did make its headway in the absence of a powerful people's theatre movement directly inspired by the social praxis of the people in the sixties. Professional and commercial theatre groups in Kerala in the sixties made a concerted effort to liberate themselves from the sentimental and melodramatic performance patterns to a plane of pseudo intellectualism to suit the ideological make up of the political middle class audience. This alone was not enough for them to become commercially successful and therefore they designed their performance structure in such a way that the cheap sentiments of the masses are also aroused. But the sixties specifically brought serious theatre activities into a sphere of academic experimentation and the beginning of this movement was made in Delhi in 1957 by the establishment of the National School of Drama with assistance from UNESCO. Alkazi and the National School of Drama formulated certain performance strategies which had far reaching consequences. Theatre came to be looked upon as an ensemble art and theatre practice became highly scientific with academic systematization. The above mentioned intellectual elite of Kerala also subscribed to the academic perspectives of the new trend in theatre. A novel venture to organize nataka kalaris in which theatre practice became highly practical oriented and actor's training and technical aspects connected with

presentation of plays were treated with utmost seriousness. The ideology of performance and theatre practice underwent drastic changes in this decade and the unprecedented assistance given by the State and Central Sangeetha Nataka Academies to these ventures were accepted without any reservation whatsoever. What is positive in this context is the seriousness given to theatre practice when the professional, commercial and political theatre in Kerala were playing with trivialities. What is more important in this highly charged academic theatre practice dominating the 'high' cultural life of the people is the infiltration of the ruling class ideology in the most subtle manner which in the long run perverts the organic cultural heritage of the people. This aspect of unconscious ideological penetration demands specialised research and a perception is gaining ground that theatre activity disconnected with the day to day life and struggles of the people become meaningful only to those who are subservient to the political and cultural hegemony of the Indian ruling class. The sixties in Kerala very clearly brings before us the complex picture of serious cultural practice making headway into two extremely divergent and dominant performance strategies determined by a social structure that has obviously become polarised into left and right political frameworks. The search for 'Indianness' in the theatre became the dominant trend and was supported by the ruling class cultural agencies as well as by imperialist cultural corporations like Ford foundation. In Kerala, theatre activists like Kavalam Narayana Panickar and G. Sankara Pillai wholeheartedly welcomed this new enthusiasm to further their experimentation in Malayalam performance practice. G. Sankara Pillai's idea of a meaningful theatre found its fruitful culmination in the formation of the 'School of Drama' as an academic department under the University of Calicut. This has to be taken very seriously as the immense potential of such a department can never go unnoticed. The seventies also finds the augmentation of a performance strategy which did influence the theatre activists and cultural workers of Kerala who were ready to disregard with contempt the political forces at work in the society. The so called thanathu nataka vedi (indigenous theatre) and its performance patterns derived from the folk and classical theatre tradition of Kerala was considered by people as pseudo-intellectual exercises with export oriented motives. But the unprecedented silence in the field of people's theatre practice was violently shaken by the ultra-radical left and an extremist performance pattern began to develop with elemental subversive potential. The political theatre practice in the seventies with its extremist overtones did indeed open the eyes of the established left which has lost its hegemony in the cultural front in Kerala and on a national level after the disruption of Indian People's Theatre Association. The impact of Baby's Natugaddika became much more popular than the revivalist performance models of Kavalam and his associates. The ultra-left theatre practice on the seventies inspired by a mechanical understanding of

Bertolt Brecht and other Communist play-wrights also was sectarian in its strategies of presentation and thus had come to a halt without much political or theatrical reverberation. But the theatre of the people can never be dead and this is what is being seen in the contemporary developments taking place on a national level. All the pseudo-intellectual experimentations in theatre get nowhere into the serious domain of peoples' consciousness and all the avant-garde experiments in Kerala theatre has come to nothing other than creating an empty space which gradually is being occupied by a theatre consciousness that demands the participation of the oppressed. There indeed is a reawakening of the people's theatre practice on a national level in the form of a new performance pattern which terms itself as street theatre. Kerala theatre has also entered into this peoples' arena and the martyrdom of Safdar Hashmi of jana natya manch once again reminds the theatre activists through out India that class-struggle in the sphere of culture will continue and theatre will again be a powerful weapon in the hands of the oppressed and the 'rehearsals of revolution' will all the time disturb the 'peaceful' slumber of the oppressor.