Lokadharmi’s Drama Performance Catalogue
Lokadharmi – Prominent Indian Theatre/ drama/ performance group
കര്ണ്ണഭാരം
Karnabharam
First produced in 1992, this drama has been performed on approximately 350 stages across India.
It has received several prestigious awards, including Best Play, Best Stage Design, and Best Costume Design from Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards 2008, and was also nominated for Best Actor, Best Ensemble, and Best Choreography in the festival. Read
ഛായാചിത്രം/
മായാചിത്രം
Portrait / Artifice
As the name of the play suggests the play is about the portrait of a women which transcends as a portrait of illusion.
The play is actually the interaction between a living man and the spirit of a dead lady, the past and present, the mundane and ethereal, that eventually leads him to the enlightening of his perception before his final moments. Multiple and parallel narration with the actors, and simultaneous usage of multimedia will constitute the performance text of the play. Various paintings by masters, projected sequences of incidents (using the same actors), animated images and visuals etc, that can add and supplement the actions on stage will be used in this narrative, to take the narrative ahead and clarify the theme of the play.
ശാകുന്തളം – ഒരു നായാട്ടു കഥ
Shaakuntalam – the Tale of the Hunt
The Boat Boy
ദി ബോട്ട് ബോയ്
This story of Baij Rout is fit to be performed as a children’s play since the hero of the story is a child, and it reflects and embody the child’s responses to the issues regarding social injustice, and their eagerness to raise their voice without any prejudices with a childlike innocence.
The story was knitted together from whatever is available from printed resources and from the history of Prajamandal and Vanar Sena in Odisha. The other major source was The Boatman Boy, the poetry of Sachi Routray, the Jnanpith award winning poet.
The Kaali Drama
കാളി നാടകം
The main narrative structure of the play is based on the ritual of Kali Naadakam, where the Goddess kills the Demon and restores order and justice. But the play has got another dimension when the reality of murder is juxtaposed with the ritual. That automatically links up the ritual to contemporary realities. Goddess is brought down from the elevated pedestal to the earthy materiality to render justice to real-world crime. Read
Production History of Lokadharmi
MAMATHIL
The mother-wall (written and directed by Kavalam Narayana Panikkar – 1991)
The first production of Lokadharmi, is written designed and directed by the veteran playwright and director Kavalam Narayana Panikkar, which was the result of a 2-week residential workshop. The protagonist of the play was a soldier at the frontier who is to save and rescue the motherland from enemies camped on the other side of the wall, while the rulers and the people are engaged in ridiculous. The situation has grown to that extend that the people are pleading with the sun to rise from the west, and no more from the East, since west is the fashion and the ordered the day. The play delved on the histrionic ability of the actors, music, movement, rhythm, and poetry.
KARNNABHARAM
The Anguish of Karnna
Written in Sanskrit by Bhasa | Trans Kavalam Narayana Panikkar | Design and direction Dr Chandradasan– 1993).
An adaptation of the Sanskrit classic as a response to the contemporary social Indian reality polarized on caste system. The play won the prestigious awards for the best play, costume and set design from the Mahindra National Festival New Delhi 2008. This production synthesizes traditional forms, like Kutiyattam, Kathakali, Kalaripayattu, Padayani, Sopanasageetham etc., to form a modern theatrical idiom in harmony with the cultural heritage of the land and is the result of the search for an indigenous Indian Theatre. The style of acting, movement pattern and choreography, music and costumes are thus modern and at the same time traditional. This play has been widely performed all over India, at various festivals including, Theatre Olympics 2018, Bharath Ranga Mahotsav, Mahindra Fest 2008. This play had 335 shows till day.
CHATHANKATTU
The Tempest written by William Shakespeare
Adapted, designed, and directed by Dr. Chandradasan in 1995.
An analysis of the process of colonization, set in an oriental island, fertile land heaving with a musical air emanating from mysterious sources. An island is inhabited by ‘subhuman tribes with immense ability of performing magic. The production aims at a distancing conforming to Indian. theatre concepts where actors are performers or demonstrators. The design of this play in an Arena is a complimentary factor. The performance text of the play constructed in local colour with multi-faceted masks, ethnic symbols, tantric art, folk music, myths and believes, and as a folk spectacle.
PORANADI
The Outcaste Written by Kavalam Narayana Panikkar
Design & Direction Chandradasan in 1996
A production covers an entire open space and eventually the participation of the spectator is anticipated as in a social ritual. Re-invoking the ferocious ritualistic atmosphere and through the festive experience the play identifies with the social anguish of the period. A play on human sacrifice to resolve the social evil. This production joins the enquiry for a visual language for the new Indian theatre, in form and in content.
NANDAN KADHA
The Story of Nandan by Indira Parthasarathy
Translated from Tamil by Shibu.S. Kottaram | Design & direction Dr. Chandradasan in 1999
The myth of Nandanar is used to analyse the institutionalization of progressive aspirations and revolting tendencies. To suppress
the revolutions, the mainstream society accepts and glorifies the revolt, thus by sabotaging its purpose. The Sanskritization of the tribal, native, and folk cultures thus by marginalizing and negating them is contextualized in the binary oppositions of the Dalit, and
elite, the privileged and the oppressed, the folk and the classic traditions. These oppositions are theatrically expressed by the stylized movements and gestures of the elite characters to the realistic and minimal movement of the Parayas. The costumes, music and the behaviour patterns also reveal this polarity.
MEDEA
Written by Euripides | Translated by Puthusseri Ramachandran | Design & Direction Chandradasan in 2001
The Indianized adaptation of the Greek classic; a play male–female relationships, a discourse on the meaning of ‘culture’ and primitiveness. A play with a strong performance design, where a group of performers is narrating the story of Medea that happened somewhere in the past, while dead fossilized images from the past are bleakly looking on. The growth of Medea from a romantic innocent girl to that of a demi-goddess all set to revenge against the insensitivity and
injustice of her husband is contemporary as well as classic. This play has been performed widely including that in Greece at the International Festival of Ancient Greek drama in 2001 and Bharangam 2002. Theatre became a ritual and ritual became a theatre in this rare production.