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Vol XXII, 1998
REVIEW
253
many other parts of the world is the active presence of women in it both as actresses and as singers
It is this extremely fascinating aspect of the role of women in Kūdiyāpattam and the related Nangyar Köttu -+that LS Rajagopalan has undertaken to discuss in depth in this scholarly treatise, after equipping himself through long years of patient watching, listening and discussion, to write the same He is one of the few who can write with authority and conviction on this subject
Rajagopalan begins his subject with an account of the different attitudes to the position of women in life and art in ancient India and then quite methodically he moves on to the social setting in Kerala with its matnlineal orientation The mocro-analysis of the social structure given by him helps us understand the overall situation behind the Kūdiyāpattam theatre He then gives a graphic description of the 'Act of Surpanakhā', the second act of Śaktibhadra's Rāmāyana play called Ascaryacūdāmani, and the roles of Rāvana, sister Śūrpanakhā, both as Lalită in disguise and as the demoness without disguise are discussed in detail This is followed by a similar account of the first act of Subhadra-Dhanañayam, and the fifth act of the same play The other plays he briefly mentions as the current repertoire of Kūdıyāpattam are TapatiSamvaranam (Act I), Abhiseka (Acts I, III) Svapnavāsavadattam (Act IV), Nāgānanda (Act II), Sakuntalam (Act III), Bhagavadajjukam and Āścaryacüdāmanı (Act IV), the references being to the annual performances in Thrissur
More than half the book is concerned with Nangyar Köttu, where the stage is exclusively dominated by the single woman performer Rajagopalan has given a scene by scene accounts of the entire Śri-Kssnacaritam told in a series of verses to be rendered solo by the actress There is more or less a comprehensive survey of the whole performance running to several days, and the points for our special attention have been highlighted, and illustrative verses are quoted in Sanskrit along with comments on the acting style While the book gives a lot of information, the important thing to be anted is that it creates in the reader a desire to see Kūdiyāpattam, and prepares him to understand and appreciate the niceties of the performance Prof K Ayyappa Paniker of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi has enlightened us on all these points about the book in his scholarly Foreword NMK
