Renaissance or Early Modernity?
renaissance and neoclassicism
unity of disunities
invention of tradition
Gumbrecht’s 3 definitions of modernity
“a modern man can never look well dressed”
single-point perspective and prosecnium theatres
Sebastiano Serlio
Spanish ‘Golden Age’ Theatre
corrales de comedias
the cazuela
Lope de Vega’s “New Art”
Lope’s appeal to uso (custom)
Spanish comedias vs. tragedy and comedy
The setting of Life is a Dream
The Corpus Christi festival
Calderon de la Barca and the auto sacramental
Sor Juana and the auto contest in Madrid
Zeal and Religion
The Aztec ritual in Divino Narciso
French Neoclassical theatre
Aristotle vs. Horace
The Hotel de Burgogne
Cardinal Richelieu and the French Academy
the three Aristotelian unities
vraisemblance and bienseance
The controversy over Corneille’s Le Cid
Giacomo Torelli and the Palais Cardinal
The Comedie Italienne and Moliere’s company
The controversy over Tartuffe
Moliere’s relationship to Louis XIV
The Comedie Francaise
English Restoration theatre
The Puritan interregnum
Charles II and his time in France
John Dryden’s defense of English drama
Aphra Behn’s female characters
tennis court theatres
Davenant and Killigrew
Dorset Garden and Drury Lane
fops and rakes
the Glorious Revolution
Hobbes and Locke
Keralan Kathakali
the Mahabharata and puranas
The Natyasastra and the Hastalaksanadipika
rasa and bhava
Namboodiri Brahmins and Nayars
‘house and its land’
rasika
The four plays of Kottayam Tampuran
the Kidangoor style and the Kalluvayi style
illakivattam in the role of Sidhika
green and black character types
kalarippayattu and kathakali actor training
mudras and rasabhinava (facial expression)
the Kerala Kalamandalam
Qing Dynasty theatre
kunqu & jingxi
Peony Pavilion
clapper opera
sheng, dan/tan, jing/ching, ch’ou roles
which characters in Qing Ding Pearl correspond to each type?
Confucianism
teahouse theatres
Mei Lanfang
the cultural revolution & Chinese opera
18th Century Europe
The Bank of England
book culture vs. periodical culture
Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot
Rousseau’s opposition to a theatre in Geneva
the concept of ‘genius’
domestic middle-class drama
social rank or station vs. character
sentimentalism
“the paradox of the actor”
sense and sensibility
David Garrick and Diderot
David Garrick and Hogarth
The Enlightenment and China
David Garrick in Orphan of China
Tuesday, March 3
Wednesday, February 25
The birth of the "star" actor: David Garrick (1717-1779)
Garrick had an unsuccessful career as a wine merchant befoe he started acting in 1740 in Ipswich, which was an important stop on the touring circuit outside London. He debuted in London as Rechard III in 1741, and followed this with a string of other major Shakespeare tragic roles. He soon became one of the managers of Drury Lane, and remained in control there until 1776. Over the course of his career, Garrick made several important contributions to the development of English theatre. He promoted Shakespeare, not simply as an important member of the English dramatic repertoire, but as the supreme English poet and proof of England’s cultural superiority. The reputation that Shakespeare still enjoys as the greatest playwright in the world was established at this point by the devotion of England’s greatest actor. In the following two centuries, Shakespeare would become a cornerstone of English education throughout the British empire, making theatre a huge part of English nationalism.
Reciprocally, Garrick used his unrivalled status as an emissary of the English national poet to promote the legitimacy of acting as a profession. You’ll recall that in the Restoration, actors were still considered little more than prostitutes. Garrick became a model of the actor as “the new natural man of reason and moral sensibility. Easy and graceful in motion, with a quick intelligence, he planned his performances meticulously, offering a model of the century’s scientific ideal of the rational soul governing the mechanical body.” As Samuel Johnson put it, “his profession made him rich, and he made his profession respectable.” As ambassador or high priest of Shakespeare and model of the new enlightened man, he became a friend of the powerful in London and lived the life of a gentleman.
The article about Arthur Murphy’s 1759 adaptation of Voltaire’s Orphelin de la Chine argues that Garrick’s production of the play navigated between an English attraction to Voltaire’s original and interest in the Enlightenment craze for Chinese culture, but appropriated it to a context in which the play could become an argument for English superiority. This is quintessential Garrick.
He also was the first international acting celebrity. Your text associaties this with periodical culture. He was the subject of hundreds of paintings and engravings, including those by Hogarth described in the book. Benjamin Victor, writing in 1761, described his career as “a bright luminary in the theatrical hemisphere… [which] soon after became a star of the first magnitude and was called Garrick.” This is apparently the first recorded use of the word “star” to describe an actor.
He was praised for bringing a new “naturalism” to the theatre, though if we look closely at what this means from our contemporary perspective, we can see how much it was shaped by the conventions of the time. For the ghost scene in Hamlet, he had a special “fright wig” constructed whose hair could be made to stand on end through a hydraulic hand pump. To 18th century audiences, this was more real than reality.
In 1775, a German visitor to London named Lichtenberg saw Garrick’s Hamlet and wrote this description of the ghost scene. He fails to mention the wig, but the rest gives a revealing impression of Garrick’s intense style:
Hamlet has folded his arms under his cloak and pulled his hat down over his eyes; it is a cold night and just twelve o’clock; the theatre is darkened, and the whole audience of some thousand are as quiet, and their faces as motionless, as though they were painted on the walls of the theatre; even from the farthest end of the playhouse one could hear a pin drop. Suddenly, as Hamlet moves towards the back of the stage slightly to the left and turns his back on the audience, Horatio starts, and saying: ‘Look, my lord, it comes,’ points to the right, where the ghost has already appeared and stands motionless, before anyone is aware of him. At these words Garrick turns sharply and at the same moment staggers back two or three paces with his knees giving way under him; his hat falls to the ground and both his arms, especially the left, are stretched out nearly to their full length, with the hands as high as his head, the right arm more bent and the hand lower, and the fingers apart; his mouth is open: thus he stands rooted to the spot, with legs apart, but no loss of dignity, supported by his friends, who are better acquainted with the apparition and fear lest he should collapse. His whole demeanour is so expressive of terror that it made my flesh creep even before he began to speak. The almost terror-struck silence of the audience, which preceded this appearance and filled one with a sense of insecurity, probably did much to enhance the effect.
Monday, February 23
The European Enlightenment & Middle Class Theatre
18th century European thought is often grouped under the name of the Enlightenment. This was a reaction to all the religious wars that had torn Europe apart throughout the 17th century. A recognition of the power of science to explore the world, and a new faith in the capacity of pure reason and rationality to answer not only scientific, but also political and social issues. There was a new focus on finding truth not in religion but in nature. However, there were ongoing debates that would continue into the nineteenth century about what that nature really was. The diehard rationalists advocated a mechanistic view of a universe that was rigorously logical and could be understood through empirical observation and experiment. Others believed that truth resided within the soul of each human being. This is the Jane Austen dichotomy between sense and sensibility. Both had an impact on thinking about theatre.
In stark contrast to Hobbes, who advocated a benevolent monarchy to elevate humanity from a state of nature which was innately bad (“Life is nasty, brutish and short”), Enlightenment philosophers frequently started from the premise that human nature is innately good, and that both personal and social bonds would thrive if individuals were true to their innate virtues and their moral sentiments, resisting selfishness and exercising benevolence.
Rousseau epitomizes this view when he writes in The Social Contract, “Man is born free, but everywhere finds himself in chains.” The philosophical approach known as romantic individualism stems from this. Be true to yourself and you can’t go wrong. The measure of truth is in our own soul. People are good. It is society that is corrupt. Evil is not innate, but rather a corruption of our good natures that can be reformed. This was a view also promoted by Addison and Steele in periodicals such as The Tatler and The Spectator. They argue that theatre should be a vehicle for educating the public in these moral sentiments appropriate to a new middle class. These are the roots of what we will later speak of as liberalism—the belief that prosperity and justice are best served by limiting the role of government and all other social institutions and letting people do whatever they want. Of course, the heroes of liberalist thought are the capitalists and industrialists who take advantage of such freedoms to amass huge fortunes.
The new drama, by extension, should abandon the aesthetics of Restoration comedy and French comedy of manners in which fops and rakes ridicule each other with witty repartee for a new kind of middle class drama about the struggles of middle class characters in which the middle class virtues such as thrift, hard work and family loyalty are rewarded and vices that destroy the family or the productivity of society are punished. This is the poetic justice that Rymer hinted at in the Restoration, but which became the moral compass for the new bourgeois drama. The important point to keep in mind here is that these shifts are a response to specific changes in European society. You can’t understand the rise of some of these things that start to look like realist drama outside the context of a middle class, capitalist and increasingly nationalistic society.
In stark contrast to Hobbes, who advocated a benevolent monarchy to elevate humanity from a state of nature which was innately bad (“Life is nasty, brutish and short”), Enlightenment philosophers frequently started from the premise that human nature is innately good, and that both personal and social bonds would thrive if individuals were true to their innate virtues and their moral sentiments, resisting selfishness and exercising benevolence.
Rousseau epitomizes this view when he writes in The Social Contract, “Man is born free, but everywhere finds himself in chains.” The philosophical approach known as romantic individualism stems from this. Be true to yourself and you can’t go wrong. The measure of truth is in our own soul. People are good. It is society that is corrupt. Evil is not innate, but rather a corruption of our good natures that can be reformed. This was a view also promoted by Addison and Steele in periodicals such as The Tatler and The Spectator. They argue that theatre should be a vehicle for educating the public in these moral sentiments appropriate to a new middle class. These are the roots of what we will later speak of as liberalism—the belief that prosperity and justice are best served by limiting the role of government and all other social institutions and letting people do whatever they want. Of course, the heroes of liberalist thought are the capitalists and industrialists who take advantage of such freedoms to amass huge fortunes.
The new drama, by extension, should abandon the aesthetics of Restoration comedy and French comedy of manners in which fops and rakes ridicule each other with witty repartee for a new kind of middle class drama about the struggles of middle class characters in which the middle class virtues such as thrift, hard work and family loyalty are rewarded and vices that destroy the family or the productivity of society are punished. This is the poetic justice that Rymer hinted at in the Restoration, but which became the moral compass for the new bourgeois drama. The important point to keep in mind here is that these shifts are a response to specific changes in European society. You can’t understand the rise of some of these things that start to look like realist drama outside the context of a middle class, capitalist and increasingly nationalistic society.
Wednesday, February 18
Chinese kunqu and jingxi video clips
Here are a handful of videos to give you a better taste of kunqu and jingxi
1) This is a promotional video from one of several productions of the kunqu opera, Peony Pavilion that took place earlier this decade in response to a UNESCO project focussing on the form as a world cultural treasure. There is a narration by UC Berkeley professor Pai Hsien-yung who emphasizes such typical elements of the form as its exquisitely decorated costumes and beautiful poetry. Kunqu is a very high and refined form that translates easily to elite contemporary global touring venues.
2) A scene from Peony Pavilion performed in a more traditional style on a traditional stage. If you find this harder to watch or less interesting than the clip above, think about the fact that the one above has been marketed for Western audiences. What have they done to make it more attractive for us?
3) A scene from a jingxi performance with various jing and wu sheng characters engaged in a battle sequence. As with kathakali, note that it isn't really about the narrative story so much as the performers displaying the essence of the experience of battle. In this sense, think of it more like dance.
4) Another video collage of a jingxi performance on a proscenium stage featuring some of the characteristic acrobatic fight scenes and the ever-popular "monkey" character. This is what all that intense physical training accomplishes!
5) Rare footage of Mei Lanfang at the age of 60 performing the dan role from the jingxi play, Farewell, my Concubine.
1) This is a promotional video from one of several productions of the kunqu opera, Peony Pavilion that took place earlier this decade in response to a UNESCO project focussing on the form as a world cultural treasure. There is a narration by UC Berkeley professor Pai Hsien-yung who emphasizes such typical elements of the form as its exquisitely decorated costumes and beautiful poetry. Kunqu is a very high and refined form that translates easily to elite contemporary global touring venues.
2) A scene from Peony Pavilion performed in a more traditional style on a traditional stage. If you find this harder to watch or less interesting than the clip above, think about the fact that the one above has been marketed for Western audiences. What have they done to make it more attractive for us?
3) A scene from a jingxi performance with various jing and wu sheng characters engaged in a battle sequence. As with kathakali, note that it isn't really about the narrative story so much as the performers displaying the essence of the experience of battle. In this sense, think of it more like dance.
4) Another video collage of a jingxi performance on a proscenium stage featuring some of the characteristic acrobatic fight scenes and the ever-popular "monkey" character. This is what all that intense physical training accomplishes!
5) Rare footage of Mei Lanfang at the age of 60 performing the dan role from the jingxi play, Farewell, my Concubine.
Monday, February 16
Chinese "opera": kunqu & jingxi and their actors
17th century painting of a private stage in Peking where kunqu might have been performed (left) and a mid-19th century Chinese stage showing the clear influence of Western proscenium scenography (right)
* * * * *
Historical overview
The Sung Dynasty (906-1279) saw the development of institutions and practices crucial to the emergence of a professional, commercial Chinese theater. An emergent middle class built numerous permanent theaters. The nanxi theatrical style, which developed at this time in South China, made extensive use of regional folk music styles and sophisticated typological systems of characterization. But the strongest evidence appears under the Mongol rulers of China in the late 13th and 14th centuries. This Yuan drama was patronized by the court of Kublai Khan, and many of the plays that are performed in all the forms of Chinese theatre were first written during this time. Chinese theatre artists look back on the Yuan drama as the golden age of Chinese playwriting when the most sophisticated and refined (that is, the most courtly) plays were written. These plays are more literary and have a more linear plot structure than most later Chinese opera and concentrate on a single protagonist who is the only singing character (somewhat like the first Greek tragedies which only had one “actor”). However, unlike the Japanese who revere the golden age of Noh or Westerners who revere Shakespeare, Chinese feel free to change these Yuan plays to adapt them to whatever new forms they want. The words of the playwright are not sacred in China.
During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and the first century of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1910), Chinese theatre drawing from folk traditions and the Yuan drama developed differently in the different provinces. During the 16th and 17th centuries, a very refined form of Chinese Opera known as Kunqu developed in the Northern cities. Kunqu drew from the literary Yuan dramas, developed refined music and became the Chinese national theatre form. But unlike in Japan where refinement brought Noh greater respect, refinement destroyed Kunqu. Chinese audiences demanded something more exciting.
In 1779 (at a point when Kunqu was practically dead) for the Emperor’s seventieth birthday (and again ten years later for his eightieth birthday) troupes of a more popular, more spectacular form called clapper opera came to Peking from the province of Anhui. They were so successful that many of them remained in Peking and spawned a new school of performance that developed into Jingxi (Peking/Beijing Opera), and influenced the development of similar regional operas all over China.
Chinese opera clearly started in more popular venues even though it first became a sensation in the North as part of a courtly celebration. Performances of Chinese opera were and still are given in the streets as well as in lavish theatre buildings. However, probably the most typical place to see Chinese opera is in a teahouse theatre. Similar to our “dinner theatres,” these are places where people go to drink tea, eat, socialize, gamble, and (up through the nineteenth century) smoke opium. Teahouses varied in how exclusive they were, and could house a wide variety of different kinds of theatre from puppet shows to Chinese opera.
* * * * *
Acting in Chinese Theatre
As we saw in the extracts from the film, Farewell, my Concubine, training of boys for Chinese opera was similarly rough and rigorous as for kathakali performers in India. Boys in acting schools (who typically came from impoverished backgrounds) were treated as property of their teachers. This could certainly be abusive. At the same time, the life of an actor offered the opportunity for fame and success otherwise unimaginable for poor Chinese children with no education.
As in India, young actors training in China would be selected early for their physical qualities and talent to specialize in specific role types. There are four basic character types in Chinese Opera: sheng (male archetype roles such as old men (lao sheng) and warriors (wu sheng), tan/dan (female characters, played in all-male troupes by men), ching/jing (painted face male characters – often kings or mythological figures) and ch’ou (clown characters)
As in India, Chinese actors portray their characters through a complex system of codified gestures (although Chinese acting gestures are generally symbolic rather than a complete sign language like Indian mudras), movements, styles of walking, styles of speaking and singing, costumes and make-up. The most famous of Chinese acting conventions are the hua lien (painted faces). Although painted faces may be quite simple as for the Dan roles (usually just white make-up with blush highlights), they can be quite elaborate for the ching/jing characters, using symbolic lines and highlights and different symbolic colors to indicate character complexity.
In Qing Ding Pearl, the fisherman's daughter is obviously a dan role, famously played by Mei Lanfang, the most celebrated Chinese actor of the twentieth century. The character is a model of the kind of filial piety expected of daughters towards their fathers in Confucian social philosophy. Her father is a typical lao sheng. His friends, the fighters, are most likely wu sheng. The diabolical magistrate is a jing character, and the comic "boxers" are chou clowns, similar to braggart soldier characters in numerous world theatre traditions.
(Left to right, top to bottom) A lao sheng character, four different jing characters, a "flower dan" (an innocent girl role), a ch'ou clown character
Wednesday, February 11
Indian kathakali overview
“It didn’t matter that the story had begun, because kathakali discovered long ago that the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don’t surprise you with the unforeseen.. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover’s skin. You know how they end yet you listen as though you don’t. In the way that you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won’t. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn’t. And yet you want to know again. That is their mystery and their magic.”
From Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
* * * * *
Chronology
1645-1716 Reign of Kottayam Tampuran who writes a set of 4 plays based on stories from the Mahabharata, which become the elite repertoire of kathakali. With the addition of the Kottayam plays to the repertoire, there was a shift of emphasis from narrative to more refined aesthetics. This attracted more Namboodiri patronage. During this period, masks were first replaced with facial make-up for demons and monkeys and the convention of singers for the text and actors restricted to hand gestures began.
Late 18th c, System of hand gestures expanded based on kutiyattam (a dance-drama with close links to the ancient Sanskrit drama) and Hastalaksanadipika, an important Sanskrit manual of gesture language. Princes of two of Kerala’s three most powerful kingdoms patronize and write for kathakali. There is a rise in popularity of rajasic (knife-type) anti-hero characters. Close study of the Natyasastra leads to a growing emphasis on subtlety of expression.
1815-61 Utram Tirunal Maharaja reigns. Under his patronage, Nalanunni develops the Kidangoor style in Travancore, southern Kerala, which emphasizes rasabhinava (the expressive use of the face in performance). The importance of this is reflected in the emphasis placed on such expressiveness in kathakali training, which includes intensive training of the eye and face muscles and mastery of 9 basic facial expressions connected to different rasas.
1850 Unnir Panikkar, under the patronage of the Olappamanna Mana household in central Kerala, develops the Kalluvayi composite style, which placed an emphasis on the “technical virtuosity” demanded by the four Kottayam plays. With this style, there is also considerable emphasis on ilakivattam (interpolations that the performer elaborates into the text of the play, such as the elaborations of Simhika grooming herself in scene 8 of The Killing of Kirmira.)
1930 After 7 years of fundraising (including a national lottery) led by the Malayali poet Mahakavia Vallathol Narayana Menon, the Kerala Kalamandalam opens, a government-sponsored institution initiating “a new institutional and patronage framework to support traditional kathakali teaching and performance.” (30) The Kerala Kalamandalam adopted the Kalluvayi style and kathakali began to be marketed among Malayalis as a marker of their identity and at a national level as a marker of a distinctive Indian national identity.
* * * * *
Rasa/Bhava and the non-duality of kathakali
As students from World Theatre 1 will hopefully remember, rasa is the flavor, taste or sentiment that a spectator is supposed to experience as a result of the actor’s performance. The word bhava is used to describe the actor’s experience, what the actor does and feels to produce in the spectator a corresponding experience of rasa. Whereas Aristotelian theatres are justified by their moral social function, theatres of the Sanskrit tradition are typically described as providing the spectator an “experience” that he can savor like the many different flavors in a good meal. For this reason, theatres of the Sanskrit tradition use rasa and bhava to make a distinction that is often unclear in European theory: the experience of the actor is not the same as the experience of the audience. The actor does not experience sadness to make the audience feel sad. Instead, he performs the appropriate bhavas that generate the experience of sadness in the audience. This leads many critics to understand Indian acting as ‘external’ in its approach compared to Western ‘internal’ acting. Phillip Zarrilli, however, argues that it isn’t as simple as that.
In his book on kathakali dance-drama, Zarrilli analyzes a famous passage from the Abhinayadarpanam, a medieval Sanskrit text frequently cited as the most important commentary on the Natyasastra, the foundational work of Indian Sanskrit dramatic theory. Like all the neoclassical commentaries on Aristotle and Horace we’ve been mentioning, the Abhinayadarpanam tries to clarify the key terms of its ancient source to make them more useful in describing contemporary theatre practice. It contains a famous passage often described as the best description of the concepts of rasa and bhava. Zarrilli translate the passage as follows:
Where the hand is, there is the eye;
Where the eye is, there is the mind;
Where the mind is, there is the bhava;
Where the bhava is, there is the rasa. (91)
The student actor begins by learning where to put the hand, where to focus the eye and how to direct the mind. Insofar as it has not yet become natural to him, his actions are always intentional, always “moving towards” the goal. For the master actor, there is no experience of a separation between body and mind, nor between craft and genuine experience. The master’s gaze follows his gesture. He is breathing and feeling the emotions fueled by the breath. He is crafting the performance and experiencing the performance all at the same time.
This is not, however, what the ideal spectator experiences. The ideal spectator is involved enough to savor the experience of the actor’s performance, and at the same time detached enough to appreciate the artistry and skill of the performer. He experiences delight while never really forgetting that he is watching a play.
The kathakali actor does “become” and “represent” the character, but these terms mean something a little different than our assumptions rooted in Stanislavsky and Aristotle.
* * * * *
General characteristics
Katha (story) + kali (dance/play) . A style distinctive to the state of Kerala in South India. Developed in the 16th and 17th centuries and is still popular today.
Most of the stories are adaptations either from the Mahabharata or Ramayana or from the puranas (encyclopedic collections of traditional stories or knowledge)
There is an active repertoire of approximately 60 plays out of about 500 that have been written (think about this in comparisons to the conditions of French renaissance acting troupes). Most of these plays were written by royal author-patrons or other authors working under their patronage, though a small number of plays have been added in the past century. Traditionally, performances would last all night.
The acting companies were traditionally all-male. Boys would train traditionally from the age of 7, nowadays they start at around 10. They would undergo an intensive training in a kalari, a family compound where they would learn the kathakali repertoire and basic acting techniques alongside basic physical training based in the martial art form known as kalaryipayattu, which was once a proprietary skill of the Nayar soldier caste. Thanks to this connection, kathakali is based in a high degree of athleticism and such basic concepts of martial arts as centering and connection of action to breath. As in many of the other forms we’ve talked about, there are stock characters and specific actors are chosen by their teachers to train for specific types because of their natural looks and aptitude and many actors become famous for specific types and roles.
There have been female kathakali troupes and foreign women have studied at the official institutes, but there is still resistance to training Indian women and accepting the legitimacy of female performers.
Since the 18th century, musicians sing the poetic dialogue, whereas actor-dancers express emotion through facial expressions and verbal language through sign language (mudras). The hand-gestures and physical movements are so demanding, as are the precise movements of the facial features, that it would be hard for actors to speak as well. Spectators always see a split image of performer and musicians who are speaking.
Traditionally, beginning in the 17th century, patronage of kathakali depended on the caste system (jati) with the high caste Namboodiri Brahmins and Nayars taking it as a duty and privilege to write plays, sponsor and support performances and sometimes even to perform themselves. The base-unit of “house and its land” defined the relationship. Royal Namboodiri patrons were expected to be protectors of the social order and to patronize the arts as one of many ways of acquiring “good fruits” for family and kingdom, and ensuring general prosperity. (21)
At the same time, members of the Nayar soldier caste trained in the indigenous martial art, kalaripayattu, which was closely tied to the sentiment of vira (heroism) and became a major cornerstone for kathakali actor training. Under the early patrons, “actor/dancer” became a new social role associated with the middle-ranking Nayars. And so acting became a jati-specific activity for the Nayars, supported by the Namboodiris. The heroic state embodied by the paccha (green) make-up type became a central concern of kathakali. The paccha style reflects “basic moral uprightness, inner refinement, and calm inner poise, the ‘royal sage’ of Sanskrit drama whose task as a Ksatriya is to uphold dharma” (23-4).
The Namboodiri patrons came to be known as rasika (connoisseurs, or those who experience rasa). “Namboodiri interest and patronage brought gradual changes to kathakali, strengthening its movement towards literary, poetic, and aesthetic refinement.” (23)
From Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
* * * * *
Chronology
1645-1716 Reign of Kottayam Tampuran who writes a set of 4 plays based on stories from the Mahabharata, which become the elite repertoire of kathakali. With the addition of the Kottayam plays to the repertoire, there was a shift of emphasis from narrative to more refined aesthetics. This attracted more Namboodiri patronage. During this period, masks were first replaced with facial make-up for demons and monkeys and the convention of singers for the text and actors restricted to hand gestures began.
Late 18th c, System of hand gestures expanded based on kutiyattam (a dance-drama with close links to the ancient Sanskrit drama) and Hastalaksanadipika, an important Sanskrit manual of gesture language. Princes of two of Kerala’s three most powerful kingdoms patronize and write for kathakali. There is a rise in popularity of rajasic (knife-type) anti-hero characters. Close study of the Natyasastra leads to a growing emphasis on subtlety of expression.
1815-61 Utram Tirunal Maharaja reigns. Under his patronage, Nalanunni develops the Kidangoor style in Travancore, southern Kerala, which emphasizes rasabhinava (the expressive use of the face in performance). The importance of this is reflected in the emphasis placed on such expressiveness in kathakali training, which includes intensive training of the eye and face muscles and mastery of 9 basic facial expressions connected to different rasas.
1850 Unnir Panikkar, under the patronage of the Olappamanna Mana household in central Kerala, develops the Kalluvayi composite style, which placed an emphasis on the “technical virtuosity” demanded by the four Kottayam plays. With this style, there is also considerable emphasis on ilakivattam (interpolations that the performer elaborates into the text of the play, such as the elaborations of Simhika grooming herself in scene 8 of The Killing of Kirmira.)
1930 After 7 years of fundraising (including a national lottery) led by the Malayali poet Mahakavia Vallathol Narayana Menon, the Kerala Kalamandalam opens, a government-sponsored institution initiating “a new institutional and patronage framework to support traditional kathakali teaching and performance.” (30) The Kerala Kalamandalam adopted the Kalluvayi style and kathakali began to be marketed among Malayalis as a marker of their identity and at a national level as a marker of a distinctive Indian national identity.
* * * * *
Rasa/Bhava and the non-duality of kathakali
As students from World Theatre 1 will hopefully remember, rasa is the flavor, taste or sentiment that a spectator is supposed to experience as a result of the actor’s performance. The word bhava is used to describe the actor’s experience, what the actor does and feels to produce in the spectator a corresponding experience of rasa. Whereas Aristotelian theatres are justified by their moral social function, theatres of the Sanskrit tradition are typically described as providing the spectator an “experience” that he can savor like the many different flavors in a good meal. For this reason, theatres of the Sanskrit tradition use rasa and bhava to make a distinction that is often unclear in European theory: the experience of the actor is not the same as the experience of the audience. The actor does not experience sadness to make the audience feel sad. Instead, he performs the appropriate bhavas that generate the experience of sadness in the audience. This leads many critics to understand Indian acting as ‘external’ in its approach compared to Western ‘internal’ acting. Phillip Zarrilli, however, argues that it isn’t as simple as that.
In his book on kathakali dance-drama, Zarrilli analyzes a famous passage from the Abhinayadarpanam, a medieval Sanskrit text frequently cited as the most important commentary on the Natyasastra, the foundational work of Indian Sanskrit dramatic theory. Like all the neoclassical commentaries on Aristotle and Horace we’ve been mentioning, the Abhinayadarpanam tries to clarify the key terms of its ancient source to make them more useful in describing contemporary theatre practice. It contains a famous passage often described as the best description of the concepts of rasa and bhava. Zarrilli translate the passage as follows:
Where the hand is, there is the eye;
Where the eye is, there is the mind;
Where the mind is, there is the bhava;
Where the bhava is, there is the rasa. (91)
The student actor begins by learning where to put the hand, where to focus the eye and how to direct the mind. Insofar as it has not yet become natural to him, his actions are always intentional, always “moving towards” the goal. For the master actor, there is no experience of a separation between body and mind, nor between craft and genuine experience. The master’s gaze follows his gesture. He is breathing and feeling the emotions fueled by the breath. He is crafting the performance and experiencing the performance all at the same time.
This is not, however, what the ideal spectator experiences. The ideal spectator is involved enough to savor the experience of the actor’s performance, and at the same time detached enough to appreciate the artistry and skill of the performer. He experiences delight while never really forgetting that he is watching a play.
The kathakali actor does “become” and “represent” the character, but these terms mean something a little different than our assumptions rooted in Stanislavsky and Aristotle.
* * * * *
General characteristics
Katha (story) + kali (dance/play) . A style distinctive to the state of Kerala in South India. Developed in the 16th and 17th centuries and is still popular today.
Most of the stories are adaptations either from the Mahabharata or Ramayana or from the puranas (encyclopedic collections of traditional stories or knowledge)
There is an active repertoire of approximately 60 plays out of about 500 that have been written (think about this in comparisons to the conditions of French renaissance acting troupes). Most of these plays were written by royal author-patrons or other authors working under their patronage, though a small number of plays have been added in the past century. Traditionally, performances would last all night.
The acting companies were traditionally all-male. Boys would train traditionally from the age of 7, nowadays they start at around 10. They would undergo an intensive training in a kalari, a family compound where they would learn the kathakali repertoire and basic acting techniques alongside basic physical training based in the martial art form known as kalaryipayattu, which was once a proprietary skill of the Nayar soldier caste. Thanks to this connection, kathakali is based in a high degree of athleticism and such basic concepts of martial arts as centering and connection of action to breath. As in many of the other forms we’ve talked about, there are stock characters and specific actors are chosen by their teachers to train for specific types because of their natural looks and aptitude and many actors become famous for specific types and roles.
There have been female kathakali troupes and foreign women have studied at the official institutes, but there is still resistance to training Indian women and accepting the legitimacy of female performers.
Since the 18th century, musicians sing the poetic dialogue, whereas actor-dancers express emotion through facial expressions and verbal language through sign language (mudras). The hand-gestures and physical movements are so demanding, as are the precise movements of the facial features, that it would be hard for actors to speak as well. Spectators always see a split image of performer and musicians who are speaking.
Traditionally, beginning in the 17th century, patronage of kathakali depended on the caste system (jati) with the high caste Namboodiri Brahmins and Nayars taking it as a duty and privilege to write plays, sponsor and support performances and sometimes even to perform themselves. The base-unit of “house and its land” defined the relationship. Royal Namboodiri patrons were expected to be protectors of the social order and to patronize the arts as one of many ways of acquiring “good fruits” for family and kingdom, and ensuring general prosperity. (21)
At the same time, members of the Nayar soldier caste trained in the indigenous martial art, kalaripayattu, which was closely tied to the sentiment of vira (heroism) and became a major cornerstone for kathakali actor training. Under the early patrons, “actor/dancer” became a new social role associated with the middle-ranking Nayars. And so acting became a jati-specific activity for the Nayars, supported by the Namboodiris. The heroic state embodied by the paccha (green) make-up type became a central concern of kathakali. The paccha style reflects “basic moral uprightness, inner refinement, and calm inner poise, the ‘royal sage’ of Sanskrit drama whose task as a Ksatriya is to uphold dharma” (23-4).
The Namboodiri patrons came to be known as rasika (connoisseurs, or those who experience rasa). “Namboodiri interest and patronage brought gradual changes to kathakali, strengthening its movement towards literary, poetic, and aesthetic refinement.” (23)
Monday, February 9
Indian kathakali dance-drama videos
Map of the states of India. Kerala, where kathakali comes from, is on the southwest coast.
In class, we watched a video of 'some guy' trying on kathakali makeup and practicing a few of the facial expressions. A brave attempt, given the long and intensive training Tommy described, which professionals feel is necessary before an actor can be seen onstage. Here are a few videos of professionals performing. Of course, there's not enough time in one week for you all to become rasika (connosieurs of the art)! But see if you can start to get a sense from these of what the major character types look like, what the major features of their makeup and costumes are, and how their acting styles differ. What kind of 7 or 9 year old boy might be selected to train for each specific character?
1) Two demonstrations of kathakali eye movements (without makeup)
2) A scene of Arjuna and Krishna, two paccha (green, heroic) archetypes. This is from a performance on a proscenium stage for a Western audience, so the polished white floor, modern lighting and lack of an audience nearby are all highly untraditional. Nevertheless, there's good cinematography and some very helpful subtitles.
3) A scene of a demoness (black) archetype, grooming herself. This is a different interpretation of the character of Sidhika from The Killing of Kirmira, the text I gave you for Wednesday. Once again, this is a performance on a proscenium stage with modern lighting and good cinematography. The video we'll see in class is a worse video, but it is taken in a traditional context. Compare these performances to get a sense of what is actually codified in the form, and what the actor can improvise.
4) A clip from a 1960s documentary on India by Louis Malle with footage shot in Madras of bharatanatyam, a classical dance form also related to the Sanskrit aesthetics of rasa and bhava, and kathakali. The kathakali sequence, which is of students practicing in a course at a conservatory in Madras, begins at around 7:40. Here we see how kathakali has been taken into the national arts curriculum and incorporated into the broader performance culture of South India.
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