maraa

Pritham Chakravarthy in Bangalore

Pritham K Chakravarthy is a theatre performer, activist, playwright and an independent researcher. She specialises in single woman performances focusing on gender and sexuality. Her piece on transgender community of Chennai, "Nirvanam" was featured in The Edinburgh International Festival 2002 and has travelled extensively in the USA and UK during her Fulbright Fellowship. "Kannadi/Mirror" [2003] "Hit Me Not and Hands Off!" [2004] have travelled to a variety of audience, from theatrephiles to factory workers. The only ensemble theatre she is working in right now "Orientations" [2003] premiered at Watermans, London and is expected to tour from next summer. Besides the Edinburgh Festival, she has been a part of the Other Festival 2003 and Kuttu Festival 2005 where she premiered her "Dushala/The Last Matriarch."

And she was in Bangalore, to workshop with Masrah, a theatre group based in Bangalore, perform two of her best plays for Bangalore and release her book titled "Tamil Pulp Fiction." In all three the common thread being storytelling. It comes naturally to her. From playing with points of view, paying attention to detail to short, crisp sentences and adapting to her audience – the words flow like as real as a conversation.

Pritham hardly conducts workshops, but Masrah was lucky to have her conduct a workshop on theatre and storytelling with the central theme as sexuality. Three main points to remember with her kind of theatre: B. Good actors have to be real on stage. B. If you fall on your face, get up, dust it and continue C. ‘Feel’ your cues; they are not merely responses to stimuli. It took some digging up from the past, lots of courage and trust and willingness to share and learn through the course of three day workshop. Pritham introduced a new concept of "repetition" to realize the seizure or breaking point through exchange of redundant questions and answers. Repetition helps concentrate deeply and not lose momentum. It is about rhythm and finding new perspectives to your state of mind. With a preempted emotion, repetition demonstrates rapid shifts in emotion with gradual exchange. There is always one person in control/power of the situation and this resurfaces the vulnerability evidently. The workshop also touched upon telling personal stories, discovering each one’s sexuality at it’s peak through stories, retelling others stories with different points of view, making up stories – all this was? A new experience and great learning for Masrah as it was one of those has a different approach to theatre, since story telling is about being grounded, yet taking off, here and there!

On July 5th, Pritham was all set to perform. Nirvanam, for the 300th time in her life. "Nirvanam (Liberation) refers to the act of liberating oneself from the male body and transforming oneself to a female. This narrative bears witness to the tumultuous journey towards a reinvented self hood, a journey fraught with violence, exploitation, affection and courage. The pains, pleasures and dilemmas of becoming the ‘other’ is the motif of the film. Weaving together performance, life histories and everyday life, it problematises the divides between ‘us’ and ‘them’."

It was tiring, watching her! The play is not melodramatic, tragic or sympathy seeking. The punch lines, the cultural context, the humor and the turn of events are timed brilliantly. With no costumes, sets, make-up or props, Pritham takes us through the lives of Aravanis , without shedding a tear. The performance has some high points which are difficult to comprehend, but she doesn’t shed a tear, instead takes us through her unique style of storytelling, which is personal, relatable and real. Her references to stereotypes that are bound to coincide with almost anyone makes the performance a real experience. The play was exhaustive. It was evident to see that the script was carefully researched and crafted to celebrate sexuality in the true Aravani style. She was gracious as a man as well as when she became a woman. This has been performed for the Aravanis, who critiqued, improvised and directed some parts of the plays.

With just a ten minute interval, Pritham returned with a broad zari border silk saree. She looked at the mirror: the audience.

Mirror is a monologue on the Feminine in Tamil Cinema, which highlights gender roles and stereotypes in the film industry, and focuses on star suicides, specifically of female actors. Mirror, a one-woman solo performance attempts to interrogate our assumptions about female narcissism; in the context of social conditions, that often cause the suicidal deaths of female stars. The narrative outlines the lives of 2 women. The first is a young, lower middle class woman of contemporary times, who commits suicide at the peak of her fame and stardom. The second, the protagonist of the narrative, is the female star of a bygone era, a person who enters the film industry when the Devadasi system is abolished. Voices of other women, including that of the narrator, produce other interlocutions.

It was interesting to listen to the audience laugh, sigh, feel sympathetic and get agitated. The vibes filled the space, as Pritham continues to sway the wand of theatre on us. Directed by her husband, Venkatesh Chakravarthy, she took us through the yesteryears of Tamil Cinema. The play dwells on how cinema has evolved but some things still haven’t change since the 30s. "Mirror" reflects upon the role of women, inside and outside the film; the similarity between reel and real and how ‘her’ way of life meanders, through different stages,over the years and as ’she’ ages. As ’she’ dresses up in front of the mirror with the required symbols that represent womanhood, she thrives respect, celebrates her sexuality, switches from one role to another, grows up like a child from innocence to experience. The performance is exhaustive for ‘the woman’ in the performance and Pritham makes it a point to follow her performances with a discussion to separate herself from the characters in the performance. One may or may not know the history of Tamil Cinema, yet there is a sense of universality about the play in spite of being specific to the sequence of the changing roles of in the history of Tamil Cinema.

Many leave thinking that she is an Aravani , or a devdasi , simply because she is so real when she acts, it’s hard to differentiate. Storytelling is about convincing your audience with your story. Pritham’s performance transports you to the place where such ‘acts’ take place and it takes a while to return to your reality.

Pritham redefines theatre and its use through techniques like storytelling, monologues, fiction, multi-lingual, use of stereotypes and cultural symbols to convey different perspectives about the themes she chooses to talk about. She strongly believes in community theatre and uses theatre to discuss child sexual abuse in schools, breast cancer and domestic violence for different communities.

Both the theatre workshop and the performances were supported by Actors’ Ensemble India Forum. Maraa and Masrah (the theatre group) co-hosted the performances at Centre for Education and Documentation (CED). Maraa, is looking at using such spaces to promote theatre, discussions and film screenings.

She has recently translated Tamil Pulp Fiction , a compilation of stories written by Tamil authors, published by Blaft . "Tamil Pulp Fiction" . These stories, while popular with the people, are not considered good enough for literature. Falling in to the category of pulp, these highly entertaining stories truly reflect the times they were written in. Detectives, gadgets, sex, guns, murders, suspense, underworld, James Bond settings – takes us through the parallel world we coexist with. Available at all book stores for Rs. 395/- It’s one of a kind- rare and real.

If you want to get in touch with Pritham Chakravarthy, you can mail her at chakravarthy.prithamk@gmail.com

Related article

Read more about her on:

constantmotion.wordpress.com/2008/07/07/a-pleasant-change/

www.hindu.com/mp/2008/07/10/stories/2008071051000300.htm

www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2008070650330800.htm&date=2008/07/06/&prd=lr&