Review by "The Hindu"

Of a fragmented past
Marappachi’s docu-drama unveils the struggles for women’s participation in public sphere, writes D.KARTHIKEYAN

Photo: G. Moorthy Perfect depiction Shedding conventional practices

“Power often operates in unseen ways through institutions and cultural symbols becoming so routinized that the distribution of benefits and costs (winners and losers) in these transactions are relatively invisible”— Michel Foucault, French Philosopher and Historian
In an effort to socially and historically construct women’s participation in the public sphere and the feminist movement’s engagement with the past, a docu-drama was performed by “Marappachi”, a Chennai based theatre group.

Staged in Temple City under the auspices of ‘Koodu’ a women reader’s forum and ‘Kadavu’ a literary organization, the play titled Kalak Kanavu or ‘A Dream of Time’, was written by social historian V.Geetha and directed by A. Mangai, pseudonym of Padma Venkataraman, a Professor of Literature in Stella Maris College who runs the feminist theatre Marappachi. Struggles of women

The play revolved around events from 19th Century in erstwhile Madras Presidency, when women began questioning their marginality. The play is like an event or a reading that depicts the various struggles of women. The docu-drama throws light on moments from modern history that shows women’s engagement in the public sphere beyond their domestic confines.

The performance rejected conventional theatrical practices where the meaning is primarily derived from the actor’s narration and not from the incorporation of external theatrical components such as sets, costumes, lights or any other technological intrusion.

Actors Kavinmalar, Revathi, Kalpana, Ponni did a good job with clear rendition of songs. Taking cue from the Subaltern Studies historiography’s search for hidden pasts, the narrative with its non-linearity was strong with excerpts from letters, diaries, speeches, oral testimonies and writings of women. It was well supported by a visual representation of posters acquired from the Rojah Muthiah Library. Hidden histories

The play was all about fragmented histories of the feminist movement, which was not structural in form. Through a non-linear narrative the play touched upon the influence of various movements and personalities on the women. For instance, the play discussed the influence of Gandhi when a lot of women participated in Satyagraha.

It also depicted how Nadars — earlier called Shanars — and lower caste women in Palayamkottai embraced Christianity to escape from the travails of Hinduism, like the practice of preventing lower caste women from wearing ‘breast cloth’.

How people reacted to the change of dress code for women under the influence of Christianity was performed in a highly satirical but enjoyable way.

A devadasi of the early 20th Century, Moovallur Ramamritham Ammaiyar, from the Isai Vellala Community who broke away from the devadasi system to take up the fight for women’s rights within the Dravidian Movement was depicted well. The novel authored by her in 1936, deals with the lives of devadasis. It came during a raging debate over the devadasi system when she chose to marry a man of her choice, a musician. She was punished and ostracised by her caste and community.

It was mostly the Devadasi women who entered the Tamil film industry. K.B.Sundarambal was one of them who married a Brahmin Kittappa and identified herself so much with him that in the process she lost her ‘self’.

Periyar’s influence on women’s movement was equally impressive. The women Self –Respecters became active historical agents making and re-making their every day lives and creating history which is known widely.

The beating of Parai can be taken as an instance of trying to appropriate the symbols of “other” and construct a history of false consciousness. The kind of embodied dispositions that acquire an exchange value are not equally distributed socially, but fractured by caste, class, and gendered positions or locations.

It is overt that the actors playing solicitors were recruited not principally on the basis of acting skill but on their embodied attributes as middle class women. The casting was done consciously on the basis of theoretical understanding rather than empiricism. This disparity between portrayal and reality and the illogical limitation of access for Subaltern women performers is a telling time lag, which highlights the point that it is the interaction between ideologies and material circumstances that ‘makes any system so powerful and enduring’.

The question of subalternity is palpably missing here, not only with reference to the verbal and corporeal imagery represented on stage but also to the power relations and levels of agency which informed the theatre act.

Initially the play gives a feeling whether it’s a hagiography of Bharathiar as lot of references are made to his feminist ideas. But then all of a sudden, reference is also made where he terms “Paarpanai Iyer endra Kaalamum poche” One wonders the relevance of these lines and the need to bring in caste here.

A reference was made on Ayothee Thass Pandithar and his ‘Oru Paisa Thamizhan’ and Sapneswari Ammal as part of the hidden histories, which was before the advent of Bharathiar.
The meaning of such socially constructed representations depends on who is in charge of the cultural production and which audiences are interpreting the cultural performances.

The link between theatre and the society it belongs to, no longer appears either the only one or the most justifiable one for someone who wishes to interrogate theatre and its culture.