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View from the stage

P.K. AJITH KUMAR

Award-winning playwright Pradeep Kumar Kavunthara talks about the theatre scene in Kerala.

Photo: S. Ramesh Kurup

Fascinated by drama: Pradeep Kumar Kavunthara.

This year’s Sangeeta Nakata Akademi Awards had a surprise in store for Pradeep Kumar Kavunthara. He won the award for the second best playwright. For someone who won the award for the best playwright for three successive years, that must ha ve been a bit of a disappointment.

“To be the best playwright in Kerala for three successive years is indeed something I am happy about. And it’s a record too, as far as I know,” says the Kozhikode-based Pradeep, who is now writing his first screenplay.

“I had to reject a few offers from cinema in the past because I was busy with my plays. Though like most playwrights, I too would like to make a mark in cinema, my first love would always be theatre. I don’t think any other medium can move a human being the way a play can, not even films. For, when you watch a play, you are watching a real human being enacting a character, and not an image,” says the man who is one of the busiest playwrights in Kerala’s professional theatre scene.
Play for Mohanlal, Mukesh

Pradeep is looking forward to stage the play he has co-written for film actors Mohanlal and Mukesh. “The writing is complete and it is something I have great hopes about.”

His latest play, ‘Ammaye Kathu,’ was previewed at Perambra, in Kozhikode recently. “It is about a mother who disappears one day,” he explains. That is in sharp contrast to the farce he wrote, ‘Avan Adukkayilekku,’ which is booked till next February.

“Even, I could not get a date to stage it in my hometown,” he says with a smile. Pradeep says he has always tried to tackle different themes in his plays. ‘Karinkurangu,’ his most successful play, dealt with the issues of self-financing educational institutes; it fetched him the award for the best playwright last year.

His 2005 award-winning play ‘Aravindan Sakshiyanu’ was about every Malayali’s dream – building a house – while ‘Utharavadapetta Uthaman,’ which won the award in 2004, was set in the backdrop of the Plachimada issue. This year it was his ‘Achan Mikacha Nadan’ that won the award.

Pradeep says he was fascinated by drama early in his life. “I used to act in plays in school and thought of writing plays when I started directing. I had written my first play when I was 17. It was after the staging of ‘Pachu Parethananu’ in Kozikode, about seven years ago, that I started getting offers from major theatre troupes in the State.”

He believes the theatre scene has become vibrant of late in Kerala once again.

“We are getting to see some new exciting plays after a gap. There is, of course, plenty of room for improvement. Not many fresh talents, be it in writing or acting, are coming up in theatre; that is because there is little money. Everyone is moving to television serials, which is something I never was keen about. Our actors need to get paid better – they definitely deserve better than Rs. 500 for a performance – and few playwrights can make a living just from theatre.”

However, he says theatre companies cannot be blamed for the situation.

“They get Rs. 7,000 to 10,000 for a stage, which is such a ridiculous price for two hours of entertainment. And 10 years ago, you used to get Rs. 8,000 for a play; it is unfortunate that theatre is not getting its due, financially or even otherwise, that too in a State which has such a glorious history in drama.”