‘Kudiyozhikkal,’ a poem by Vyloppilli Sreedhara Menon, was adapted into a play by Nireeksha, a women’s theatre group. Manu Remakanth
Photo: S. Mahinsha
New look: ‘Kudiyozhikkal’ tells us about the evolving relationship between a landlord and his tenant against the background of a social revolution.
The people who gathered at Vyloppilli Samskriti Bhavan last week were in for a surprise as they witnessed one of their favourite poems in Malayalam literature recreated on stage. The poem, ‘Kudiyozhikkal,’ by renowned poet Vyloppili Sreedhara Menon was adapted for the stage by ‘Nireeksha’ a women’s theatre group.
Evolving relationship
The play tells us about the evolving relationship between a landlord and his tenant against the background of a social revolution. The poet, who is also a landlord, dwells in the world of art, and is quite insensitive to the lives of his tenants who live on the outskirts of his large estate. He is searching for a creative spark as writer’s block has temporarily dealt a blow to his affair with the muse. Seeing his tenant, a drunkard, beating up his wife (the poet’s former flame) during drunken fits does not help.
The poet is puzzled at why the drunkard’s wife tolerates the abuse. In a flash-back of sorts, the poet recalls how he had jilted the woman as he was afraid to challenge society by marrying a woman from a different caste. The story takes a different turn when the tenant’s house is gutted in a fire and they are forced to leave. The distraught poet undergoes a transformation. But the damage is done as the social revolution that sweeps through the land obliterates the old order and the landlord too.
The last scene of the play is a definite step away from the original poem. Carried to the 21st century, we see a boy playing a computer game in which the player is supposed to ‘colonise a land.’ The boy, when confronted by his mother, answers that the only ‘landlords and tenants’ he knows happen to be in the screen world. Through this telling image, the viewers are yanked out of the time Vyloppilli created in his poem
The introduction of the poet’s wife is also an innovative idea in the play. “We wanted to narrate the story through a woman’s eye,” says C.V. Sudhi, the director of the play. “There is a personal and ideological conflict between the landlord and the tenant. But we had to give stress to the emotions of the women in the story. We had to enhance them as only shades were there in the original poem,” she adds.
Rajawarrier performed the role of the poet-landlord to perfection while Athira was all magic with her sparkling portrayal of the tenant woman. Asha who enacted the role of the poet’s wife highlighted the better side of the poet with her pithy dialogues.
Rajarajeswari who did the almost impossible job of adapting the long poem for the stage says that she did not plan it to be a kind of ‘feministic sloganeering,’ but “the play is an artistic rereading of the poem as a woman.”
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