The art of performance is said to be as old as humankind and it prevails everywhere where people live as groups. The space for performance may range from the corner of a classroom or under trees to international platforms. However, the art form, across the world is considered as an important medium to express the complexities of life, nature, emotions and sounds. In a message on International Theatre Day this year, South African playwright Brett Bailey, says, “We gather to weep and to remember; to laugh and to contemplate; to learn and to affirm and to imagine.”Theatre has been part of Kerala's socio-political and cultural development and it has moulded many eminent theatre personalities who have won international accolades. As the Kerala theatre scenario crosses more boundaries and tries to explore the myriad possibilities in bringing change in communities and attitudes, we feature three successful theatre practitioners from Kerala who have made their mark on the global theatre front.Every Sunday in Tokigawa, Japan, local residents gather at Prabhath’s space, Anandam. They perform the play they practised the previous week and after that they sit together and relish the Kerala cuisine prepared by Prabhath and his wife, Kana, who is also a theatre aficionado. The dishes include rice, sambar and thoran. The vegetables used are grown by Prabhath and theatre enthusiasts in organic farms, along with the farmers in Tokigawa. “We are trying to encourage the idea of eating together and bonding over food which is now very rare in our communitues,” says Prabhath.The theatre practitioner, who is an assistant professor at the University of Pondicherry, is on a sabbatical in Japan doing farming and theatre. In his words, he is “farming theatre” or creating a natural theatre, he says; the farm is his stage, music and dance become the fertilisers in the farm. “I am a true farmer now. We do theatre for good harvest,” says Prabhath, adding that his day begins at 5.30 am. “We leave for the field and return in the evening.” During work breaks, the farmers and Prabhath practise the play they are planning to perform the coming Sunday. “Everybody is part of our performance, even the children. Whatever, we get from the farm is cooked and served on Sundays after the performance,” he says. Prabhath, who met his wife Kana, a Japan native through theatre. The couple has two kids who are also active in their productions.The Malappuram man who is an alumni of School of Drama, Thrissur, always had an interest in “primitive” theatre practices. That is how he devised a project titled Cycle Yajna, which was performed across India and Sri Lanka in 2015. The community theatre project focused on bringing even the common man into the fold of the theatre. One of the places the group worked in was Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu, which was badly affected by the tsunami. They stayed and interacted with the people and everybody in the village became part of their theatre performance.Taking inspiration from the experiences he had during Cycle Yajna, Prabhath headed to Japan with his wife and children where he is doing a research orientated practice on tai chi and the balance of motions and imagination and a project on agricultural theatre. “The history of theatre stems from farming. Most of the farmers in our place are artists in some way. In Japanese theatre, farmers are never heroes. Hence, I felt like bringing a style that would make theatre a common medium. Together, we are trying to build the relationship between art and agriculture, theatre and farming,” says Prabhath.Abhilash's tryst with theatre began when he was very young. He spent his childhood in different states of India as his parents were Central government employees. "I was exposed to the different kinds of theatre of all these places as my dad was a theatre connoisseur. I also got the chance to learn the classical dance and music of different states,” he says. One thing which was common in all the places that his parents were transferred to was the circus. “It has no language and I never wanted help to understand it. So I used to enjoy and analyse the differences between the circuses that I watched in different places.” Later, when he became an acclaimed theatre director, his childhood influences, especially the circus, were always seen in his works, especially, Talatum, a circus-style theatre production.The world of theatre became clearer to Abhilash when he joined the School of Drama, Thrissur. “There, I was introduced to classical theatre, Natya Shasthram, western classical theatre, ancient Greek and Shakespeare. Our generation was moulded by Vayala Vasudevan Pillai sir and Ramachandran Mokeri Mash. International theatre practitioners were available for us to learn the techniques of productions. “He then went on to do his masters at the National School of Drama.” There, I was exposed to the avant-garde style of theatre making. I was able to connect with a lot of theatre directors who were beyond the patriarchal lines and there I learnt that the director is not practising power but is distributing power to every single person in the group.”Abhilash also had the rare chance to study in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London. “Here, I worked with different theatre directors when I got selected as an assistant director at the Orange Tree theatre in Richmond, England. There I made my first international theatre production which was based on the local story of two Punjabi brothers who flew from India and died at Richmond. He had already done a national-level theatre production titled Lankalakshmi in 1994 based on playwright C N Sreekantan Nair's story. It created headlines as The Babri Masjid was demolished two years before the play was performed and it was a story told from Ravana’s perspective. After returning from England, he directed Saketham, which was selected for a series of shows in Japan. His plays have also been staged in Portugal, Germany, Russia, Korea and China among other countries. “I directed a play in Russian which is on the Abhinjana Shakunthalam, titled Shakunthala. A play that I directed in Japan was a collaboration of artistes from Japan, Sri Lanka, France, Germany, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh.”His latest production was in Taiwan on a theme based on cancer which is loosely based on The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee. “We performed it in the Mandarin language and it was enacted by artistes from Taiwan.”Based in Delhi currently, Abhilash is a theatre teacher at the National School of Drama. He is a darling of theatre students as he has initiated the students exchange programme. “I had struggled a lot to get a scholarship to study abroad. So, here we facilitate an exchange programme where the students can go to RADA and vice versa. We make the channel easier and better for education abroad,” he says, whose wife Jilmil Hajarika, is also a theatre person.He was passionate about poetry when he was young. That got him into journalism and he used to write features for different media, until he went to write about a theatre camp conducted by G Shankarapillai. It was a life changing moment for Sreenath Nair who has been teaching at the University of Lincoln, England, for the past nearly two decades.“I happened to hear a speech of G Shankarapillai sir and it opened the doors of theatre for me,” he says. His collaboration with P K Venukuttan Nair brought him closer to theatre. "I got to know that my life has to be connected to theatre.” He became active in theatre. “Then I realised that it is important to have a strong base on the theoretical aspects of theatre. And it took me to the School of Drama, Thrissur. That was the beginning of a long journey. I took my masters in Ravindra Bharathi University, Kolkata. Here, I learnt about Bengali theatre.”Then, he took a break from studies after Masters and went to Delhi. “I associated with Omchery N N Pillai. There I wrote my two plays Devasilakal and Beauty Parlour.” He returned to his hometown, Thiruvananthapuram, in the 90s, where Sreenath soon became a popular figure in Malayalam theatre.The next U-turn in his life happened when he met Ayyappa Panicker. “He has influenced me as a playwright. So, I rewrote the play Devasilakal and the actor Sreelatha Kadavil won Kadavil Kerala Sangeeta Nataka Akademi award for it. While we were rehearsing Devasilakal, Panicker sir walked in with professor Ralf Yarrow of the University of East Anglia. He invited me to his university. There while working on plays, I started doubting what I have been doing. I started thinking about the acquired culture that we have due to the influence of colonialisation on our indigenous culture. We have a rich performance tradition which is very connected to our land and life. So, I started focusing on it,” says Sreenath, who is the founder of the Indian Theatre Journal.The passionate writer, director and facilitator, keeps returning to his homeland to do plays. His latest work is Mariamma, the first social play in Malayalam written by Polachirackkal Kocheeppan Tharakan in 1878, “It had been denied its due even in the State’s theatre history. It is very important in Malayalam theatre history but was never acknowledged. The play’s protagonist is a woman who dies because of domestic violence.” The Mariamma cast was made of fresh faces. "Theatre is for people. It should touch hearts and be simple and easily conveyed,” he says.He is currently writing a book, which will be a detailed study on theatre traditions. He also has a new project in Kerala planned. “I believe in intimate theatre which can bring people together. Whoever is associated with theatre will change internally, be it the audience or the actor. It is time for a re-research. We need to unlearn whatever we have learnt and then start afresh on the importance of what we should focus on,” he says.

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