Rejected and reviled — a lethal mixture in a lady scorned and an encapsulation of how Shoorpanakha from The Ramayana has been seen down the ages. Well, each villain has an origin story and Shoorpanakha: A Search is hers. Presented by Parshathy J Nath, this piece not solely appears at the girl inside the demon princess, but in addition sheds gentle on the fiends and divas that dwell inside every of us.
There is scant point out of Shoorpanakha in mythology and the ones that happen, present her in a most unflattering gentle, which makes the alternative of her as a central character in any efficiency an fascinating one.
Parshathy says Shoorpanakha’s story stayed together with her as a result of it was a traumatic expertise.
“I realised that men treating her with triviality was something most women, myself included, have undergone. More than her nose being mutilated, I believe it would have been far more humiliating to have her emotions made light of and be subject to suggestions that she offer her love to others.”
Parshathy emphasises that Shoorpanakha is “not a rant against men”, although it occurs to girls in India as a rule given the patriarchy and courting tradition prevalent right here.
“I wanted to explore this binary of Shoorpanakha and Sita, and how societal standards for beauty seem to follow a stereotype.”
Parshathy J Nath as and in Shoorpanakha
| Photo Credit:
PeeVee
At house on stage
Parshathy’s love story with the theatre started together with her first college audition at the age of 10. “I was instinctively drawn to theatre; it was not a class or discipline my parents foisted on me — perhaps that is why I was able to explore it to my heart’s content,” says the artiste, who started coaching in classical dance and vocals at the age of six. “I can still recall the wonder I felt at the transformation that unfolded on stage.”
Though she continued to script and direct performs whereas in school, her ardour took a step again as life and a profession bought in the means, says Parshathy. As a journalist, she would write about others’ performs debuting in the metropolis, all the whereas craving for the stage lights herself.
“In 2017, I participated in a play after a gap of six years and realised how much I had missed it,” she says, including it was the set off that introduced her again to the theatre. “I was 27 years old at the time and I remember thinking, “If not now, then when?” I knew I had to choose and that if I waited longer, I’d lose the drive to behave.”
Parshathy stop her job as a journalist and went into theatre full time — working with varied administrators and enrolling at the Ninasam Theatre School in Karnataka in 2019. “Studying at Ninasam was life changing; I got to live and interact with theatre practitioners from rural Karnataka. We would heat water on wood, I picked up Kannada there and I ended up training for a Yakshagana performance.”
Germ of an concept
The seeds for Parshathy’s piece on Shoorpanakha had been sown whereas learning at Ninasam Theatre School in Karnataka and she says the suggestions from her mentors gave the play its current form. “Around that time I attended a Yakshagana performance by Sharanya Ramprakash titled Akshayatra that intersected gender and class, and was multi-layered in depth. It opened my eyes to the many possibilities of this art form.”
“When we think of a play, it is usually the imagery that first comes to mind and I initially envisioned Shoorpanakha as a classical piece with Bharatnatyam and Carnatic music, especially as the protagonist is a mythological character.”
However, since 2021, Parshathy says her depiction of this characterhas been evolving alongside two strains — of delving deeper into Shoorpanakha’s psyche and of unlearning her physique language as a classical dancer in an effort to absolutely embody the half she has to play.
Parshathy J Nath as and in Shoorpanakha
| Photo Credit:
PeeVee
“My stint at Adishakthi opened new ideas of crafting a performance piece with my entire body language responding to my training in koodiyattam, kattaikkuttu and other art forms.”
“If I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t be able to do justice to the role since Shoorpanakha was a free-spirited, forest dweller. My experiences in life are vastly different and limited to a classical body language,” she says.
In order to reimagine the character, Parshathy researched Malayalam and Kannada literature solely to search out minimal references. “Yet, performative traditions such as koodiyattam, had an entire episode detailing Shoorpanakha’s life.”
Parshathy undertook koodiyattam coaching below Aparna Nangiar as properly kattaikkuttu with P Rajagopal and Hanne M de Bruin. She additionally learnt to play the mizhavu (a percussion instrument) with Kalamandalam Rajeevan and Harihara Guptan. “Its sound played a crucial role in the performance, figuring as almost as another character”. Additionally, she learnt to sing oppari and how you can play the parai with Gangai Master and Manimaran.
With gentle music impressed by people traditions, Shoorpanakha: A Search which is an hour-long efficiency consists of an authentic oppari composition by Pa Thriuvenkatachami, crafted specifically for this piece produced by The India Foundation For Arts below their Arts Practice programme
Shoorpanakha: A Search shall be offered at the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi in Thrissur on June 6, at Ranga Shankara in Bengaluru on June 11, and at the Medai in Chennai on June 22. Information on the tickets priced at ₹299 can be found on-line.
Published – June 05, 2025 07:40 pm IST
