A scene from the play Suddha Maddalam performed by Amal Rajdev and Rajesh Sharma.
A liberal adaptation of N.N. Pillai’s one-act play Suddha Maddalam being performed in various parts of the city since March 20 will have three performances at the Sacred Heart College at Thevara on March 28, 29, and 30 before a final show at the Cabral Yard pavilion of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale on March 31.
The play was performed on World Theatre Day on Monday at Angamaly under the aegis of theatre activists’ collective NATAK and at Ala Cultural Centre at Mulanthuruthy a day before that.
The ongoing set of shows are intended to celebrate its over 500 stagings, says Amal Rajdev, who along with Rajesh Sharma, enacts the play, which has been adapted to reflect the present-day issues facing Kerala society while retaining its core theme of tempering human relations, especially those between partners, with a deep sense of democracy and equality.
The play is directed by P.J. Unnikrishnan. It shows two strangers, both men, mulling suicide meeting on a bridge. Performed with the audience sitting around them, it is intimate theatre with the audience being a part of the intense drama as it unfolds.
