| The
stage exploded in the blackness of a primeval soundscape.
Brigitte
Reveili premiered ‘Never For Ever’ last evening at The Other
Festival in collaboration with Alliance Francaise de Chennai. Brigitte
studied Kathakali in India after her stint as a dancer in the Kilina Cremona
contemporary dance company in France. She is also a sculptor and uses terracotta
to shape her ideas. She is now exploring the world of puppets and masks.
‘Never For
Ever’ is based on stories from the Panchatantra, and fables by the 17th
century French poet Jean de la Fontaine who was inspired by Vishnu Sharma,
the author of Panchatantra.
Jean de la
Fontaine begins with one of his own fables about the dog and the wolf after
he comes across a dog. He meets Vishnu Sharma and the two start talking;
they are interrupted by a quarrelsome bunch of people. This prompts the
narration and enactment of the tale of fight between the owls and the crows.
In a vicious
attack, the owls attack the crows and kill most of them. Megavarnam, the
king of crows looks to Sithrajeevi, an old minister. Sithrajeevi comes
up with a plan putting forth himself as bait. He convinces Aarimardhana,
the king of owls, that he is on their side and seeks asylum. He doesn’t
fool Rektasan, another powerful owl, who leaves the group as his advices
are ignored. Sithrajeevi, over time, collects inflammable materials and
spreads it throughout the owls’ stronghold. One morning, when the owls
are fast asleep, Sithrajeevi and his associates set fire to the place.
All the owls die. Amid the rejoicing, Sithrajeevi cautions them and tells
them the reason for their continuous conflict with the owls.
Birds, dissatisfied
with their king Garuda, chose the owl as their new leader. At the crowning
ceremony, a crow ridicules the choice of the ugly owl and tells them to
retain the regal Garuda as the king. The birds follow the crow’s advice.
The owl is insulted and promises revenge. From that day on, they became
enemies.
La Fontaine
cuts into the narration at some points with apt tales from the Panchatantra,
like the one about the superiority of the rabbit’s intelligence over the
lion, another about the clever fox who escaped from the clutches of a hungry
lion and yet another about how the rabbits were able to scare the elephant
herd away.
The stage
exploded in the blackness of a primeval soundscape.
To begin, the
performance blew me away. I did not expect such a powerful convergence
of sound, content and superb visual imagery. In darkness, the soft lights
caught the parts of the paper-and-wire costumes painted with fluorescent
colours, emphasising bird shapes that touched upon fantasy. Battery-operated
lightbulbs lit up the faces (painted human) of the birds. The birds were
designed differently, even among the same species. The owls looked menacing,
the crows looked naïve, Garuda looked pompous…
The sounds
were generated by Shankar and Prashant, using instruments such as the didgeridoo,
flutes, whistles, the mizhavu drum, and a host of other percussion sources.
They were good – good enough to sound like four people.
The performance
was in Malayalam-accented English, and this lent a certain rustic charm
to the verbal narrative. The group of players were mostly Malayalee stage
actors from Kerala; a few others belonged to Chennai’s Koothu-p-pattarai
group. Brigitte’s background in Kathakali showed in the manner in which
she choreographed the movements of the birds, mostly the fierce owls.
The production
is clever with a dose of saucy innocence. The use of a very basic held-together-with-strings-and-tension
slide (painted glass) projector to support certain fables was innovative.
The characterisation of La Fontaine and Vishnu Sharma were quite interesting.
The only blue note was that the tempo was slack at times but it really
didn’t matter that much. ‘Never For Ever’ is going to other cities. I wish
them all the very best.
Before I end
this piece, I should let it be known that ‘fabella’ is Latin for fable,
and that the title is a result of a particularly nasty version of writer’s
titling-block. As for relevance, I think that those four words sum it up
the best.
This was a
trés bon son et lumiere.
Ranjith Bhaskar lives and works in
Chennai and can be reached at ranjithbhaskar@yahoo.co.uk |
