DRAMA
ON THE EXTINCTION ROUTE
N.Nandhivarman
A
bilingual bard with a Lenin style beard could be often seen as an active
participant in all literary activities in Pondicherry. Meet the soft–spoken Nalla
Kothandaraman, a post graduate, who had rubbed shoulders with stalwarts of
Tamil theatre like TKS brothers and acted with actor Srikanth in many a drama
in the second half of the 20th century. That most cine stars of yester- years
were products of Tamil drama stage can never be overstated, be it MGR, Sivaji
Ganesan, SSR and Monorama, just to name a few. And the likes of Nalla
Kothandaraman who lost out in the race to the silver screen are pulling out all
stops to help Tamil drama pace with the needs of changing times.
The drama for
all practical purposes is headed for extinction, the reason being an
ever increasing influence of television. Tele-serials no doubt are drama of the
current times, but its content remains stuck in oft-repeated themes. Had Mahakavi
Bharathiar been alive today, he would have surely called for integrating Tamil
drama with Universal Theatre. Such a dream to materialize calls for foolproof
translations. There is a void here though, which needs to be filled. ‗In
Pondicherry, we have talent, but Tamils living elsewhere across the globe are
not giving Tamil scholars of Pondicherry their due, ―says Miss N. Sumathy
Director of Arts & Culture, Government of Pondicherry.
Kothandaraman alias
Villiyan definitely deserves his due. Going by a wide array of his unpublished
works, one could safely gauge his literary prowess. He had translated Eugene
O‘Neill‘s trilogy titled Mourning becomes Electra. His three plays namely All
Gods 203 Children Have wings, Long Days Journey into Night and Before Break
fast have been translated into Tamil, but yet to get published. The story
repeats for George Bernard Shaw‘s Arms& The Man, Apple Cart and Devils
Disciple , and Rabindra Nath Tagore‘ Sacrifice, Mukthdara, Chandalika, which
now all stand translated in good Tamil. Similarly Anton Chekov‘s Bear, Philip
Freud‘s Charles IV, Walter Macken‘s, Mungo‘s Mansten, Lois N. Parker‘s,
Monkey‘s Paw, Rubert Brock‘s Lithunia are readily available in script form, but
sadly not in the print format. Even though they have missed the print so far,
still they could reach the masses just like the theatre. But this too is
fraught with many a hurdle.
The only theatre that finds a bit of support is
theatre with castiest themes, whereas universal concepts and famous authors
invariably get a short shrift. And purely because of this mindset,
world renowned authors and their literary products languish as these can not be
successfully marketed and reach the common masses. No wonder then,
Kothandaraman with such a long list of unpublished scripts had translated PG
Wood house‘s novel Leave it to Psmith which is still waiting for its space in
Tamil print media. Ditto for the translated novel of V K Subramaniam‘s titled
Love A Bliss & Hell. Kothandaraman so for has three books to his credit, including
his poems in English with the title What Do we Care and a few other Tamil
poems. But for the moment all that he desperately needs is public recognition,
which so for has given him the slip.
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