A ‘chayakada’ (teashop) is a familiar image for Keralites. So while purists of the language might sneer at the idea of a ‘tea shop culture’ in Kerala, many others familiar with the local scenery would be in agreement about the unique significance of the teashop as a meeting place where opinions on different topics were formed and consecrated. It used to be the nerve centre of a village or a small town. That is why teashops have an irreplaceable position in the social, cultural and political map of Kerala.
So it was that when cultural activist Soorya Krishnamoorthy was visualising a new kind of theatre, he decided to base it around a tea shop in a fictional village – Chamundivilasam chayakada in Chamundipuram. Under the generic name of ‘Chayakada Kathakal’, four new plays were staged in a new open-air venue called Soorya Avenue at Thycaud, Thiruvananthapuram.
Termed as the first ‘realistic, cartoon theatre’, the first plays of Chayakada Kathakal comprised four short plays written by different playwrights, all directed by Krishnamoorthy himself.
“I called it cartoon series because the characters in the play remain the same, with the same characteristics. Not all of them appear in every play. But these characters will neither age nor change. Like cartoon characters, they will remain untouched by time. It is realistic, because we closely follow the narrative style. There is no background music or unnecessary dramatic flourishes. This is perhaps the first of its kind in Malayalam, if not in the world,” explained Krishnamoorthy.
Characters that one would expect to see in a village teashop frequented the joint and they set the stage for the story. The period in which a tale was narrated was specified by film posters outside the teashop. ‘Bheeman Ravunni Nair’, the first play in the series, unfolds in the mid-fifties, as indicated by a film poster of Neelakkuyil .
‘Bheeman Ravunni Nair’ was inspired by a character from M.T. Vasudevan Nair’s Nirmalyam . Krishnamoorthy excerpted Ravunni Nair from the film and gave him a story that brought him to the teashop, set in a timeless place that could be anywhere in Kerala. In this play, it became a village in Malabar where the old mores were giving way to the new. Without much ado or melodrama the play encapsulated the passing of an era and the life and times of a Kathakali artiste Ravunni Nair, brilliantly played by Krishnan Nair Neyyattinkara. Arun Nadh V.S. did a competent job as the teashop owner Nanu Nair. If Sreekumar Mullassery was delightful as the irreverent barber who set up his shop outside the teashop, Shaj Nizar B.M. lived his role as the arrogant and ruthless feudal lord. An oracle (velichapadu), a panchayat president, a tailor, a local feudal lord and a villager were some of the people who appeared in the play. Vishnupriya appeared as Khadeeja and Omanakuttan as a passerby, forced to endure Velu’s black humour.
‘Theeta Rappayi,’ adapted from the real-life story of a man with a humungous appetite, was a delightful sketch of a man who always wanted more till the day he could eat no more. It was a master stroke of casting to get Norbert Noble to play the role of Rappayi. Noble pulled it off with consummate ease. Devan Nellimood appeared as the ubiquitous panchayat president and raised a few laughs. Subtle touches of humour made it a captivating watch. One did wonder if Hima Shankar’s Ammu could have been more restrained while trying to cajole Rappayi into eating in both the instances when he visits the teashop.
‘Amma Thangamma’ and ‘Thorappan Gonsalves’ were staged the following day at the same venue and against the same backdrop.
‘Amma Thangamma’, written by Krishnamoorthy, was a tearjerker that had Hima in the title role of an aging mother who was being ill treated by her son. The suffering matriarch is a familiar figure for all cine-goers. But what made her stand out was her courage in the face of adversity and her advice to other grief-stricken characters in the play – an indigent nagaswaram vidwan Kunju Pillai, who has an unmarried daughter, and a widow in her white sari. She reminded Kunju Pillai that marriage was not the be-all and end-all for a woman and advised the widow not to wallow in sorrow but to live life as a mark of love for her deceased husband.
The grand finale was a gem of a play written by Sreekumar Mullassery. A satire, it had two food inspectors arriving at Chamundivilasam teashop for an inspection. Each of the actors came up with memorable acts that kept up the tempo of the narration without a pause. One of the finest scenes in the series was when the two inspectors get a taste of the food in Nanu Nair’s little eatery. Both Sujith A.K. and Sreekumar were flawless in their performances as a range of emotions played on their faces when they savour the food. It finally turned out to be a storm in a tea cup. Arun came into his own in ‘Thorappan Gonsalves’.
Buoyed by the success of the play, which was viewed by a capacity audience on all the days it was staged, Krishnamoorthy plans to take it across the State and country. “The shows were ticketed and even then we were sold out. I wanted to begin a culture of buying tickets to see theatre and also help the troupe financially,” he says.
He adds that the 10 members of the cast will enact all the plays in the series. All the plays were staged against the same background of the Chamundivilasam Chayakada, run by Nanu Nair. But for Nanu Nair and Ravunni Nair, the other characters were enacted by a cast who took turns to enact different characters. “While the backdrop of the teashop will remain the same, its location may change with the story being narrated on stage,” says the director.
The aim is to present six plays over three days by the same troupe. “So when organisers come to us, they will pay us the amount for a day’s play. In return, they will get six plays staged on three days,” he says.
Set design by Hylesh was supplemented by the excellent light and sound arrangements.
