PÂVAKATHAKALI
TWO EPISODES FROM THE MÂHABHÂRATA KALYANA SAUGANDHIKAM (In Quest of the Fragrant Flower) DURYODHANA VADHAM (Duryodhana’s Murder)
puppeteer, artistic director
Ravi Gopalan Nair
puppeteer
Keshi Ramakrishnan, K.V. Ramakrishnan, Srinivas
et un musicien aux tambours centa et itakka, et gong cenkila
Marionnettes traditionnelles du Kerala
All publics, from 8 years old.
They mime the gods, these small dolls with their painted faces, their ceremonial dresses and their golden ruffs. Behind them bare-chested puppet masters move about; they do not hide, being, as it were, the antechamber of the show. For over twenty years two brothers have been restoring a tradition the movies had stifled. Gopal Venu and Ravi Gopalan Nair have learnt from a master the art of the pavakathali*, a miniature epic in which sacred puppets re-enact the birth of all the worlds. The show is a must. The pavakathali is not a reduction of the myth but its exact reflection in a tradition where gestures are undisputable, whether they originate in puppets or in humans. The legends are always drawn from the Mahabharata or the Ramayana. In this case we are told the story of a young heroine in quest of a fragrant flower and the ploys of Hanuman the monkey to stall her. The ravishing tradition of the puppets from Kerala is four centuries old and is now performed by one company only. The two directors of the company, two brothers, are not content with searching ancient scrolls and memories. Year in, year out they have reconstructed, adapted and expanded dramatic skills which were the prerogative of strolling artists. Nothing could be more intense, in these Indian nocturnes, than the twin faces of wood and flesh, nothing more intense than the actor breathing the legend into his sculpted tool.
* In Malayalam, the language spoken in Kerala in the South-West of India, katha means story, kali, play, and pava means puppets or dolls.