Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Series Preface
Acknowledgements
Notes on Transliteration

Introduction
What’s in a Name?
Tamil Theatre Histories
Discourse of Contempt
Alternative Views
Personal Note

Chapter 1. Kattaikkuttu: Aesthetic Characteristics and Historical and Socio-economic Contexts
What is Kattaikkuttu?
The Elements
Performance Spaces
Performances
Performers
Art as Labour
Theatre Companies
Emergence of Kattaikkuttu as a Distinct Genre
Summary

Chapter 2. Producing an All-night Performance
Performance Texts
Framework of a Performance
Building Blocks and Modes of Production
Performance Conventions and Recall Strategies
The Play Karna Moksam
Shifting Repertories
Summary

Chapter 3. Transmission, Interpretation and Innovation
Kattaikkuttu’s Embodied Performance Knowledge
Interpretation
The Kattaikkuttu Gurukulam
Pakatai Tukil
Validation and Aesthetics

Notes
References
Index

Promotional Information

The book explores Kattaikkuttu, a vibrant, Tamil-language-based, musical and physical form of ensemble theatre, describing its recent history, social status and ritual context.

About the Author

Hanne M. de Bruin is Programme Director and co-founder of Kattaikkuttu Sangam, a center for performing arts in Tamil Nadu, India, where Kattaikkuttu is performed and artists are trained in its traditions. From 2016-2018 she was a Fellow at the International Research Center for Interweaving of Performance Cultures, Berlin, and in 2019, 2020 and 2023 a guest-lecturer at Ashoka University, India. Her previous publications include Kattaikkuttu: Flexibility of a South Indian Theatre Tradition (1999), Karna Moksham or Karna’s Death (English translation of an Kattaikkuttu play, 1998) and the co-edited volume Between Fame and Shame (2011).

Reviews

This is an extraordinary introduction to an invisibilized theatre tradition. De Bruin skillfully highlights the complex social history, spectacular technique and cultural politics around the Tamil kuttu theatre. This book marks an immense contribution to the study of subaltern theatres from South Asia by one of the most significant scholars on the subject. Few studies of Indian theatre glide so seamlessly between theoretical propositions and the affective and material dimensions of practice. This book is bound to become a classic for the study of theatre in modern South Asia.
*Davesh Soneji, University of Pennsylvania, USA*