I first went to India in 1973 on a two-year posting with the Government of Canada’s Department of External Affairs, where I lived and worked in the capital city, New Delhi.  There was ample opportunity to enjoy a wide variety of performing arts from all over the country, especially at the India International Centre, which offered dance, drama and music programs several times a week, at no charge, partly to give Delhi’s many foreign residents an acquaintance with India’s rich, ancient cultural heritage.   It was there that I saw my first Kathakali.  

I enjoyed it for the rhythm and grace and expressiveness of the dance-actors, for their wonderful body-language and intriguing make-up and costumes, and also for the highly rhythmic and melodious music of the accompanying singers and percussionists.  But since the text was sung in a language unknown to me, since the Kathakali artists do not speak in any language and since I was not even acquainted with the characters, whose source is usually the Indian epics and religious literature, I could only guess at the meaning of the dance.  Only years later, when I began to live in Kerala for months at a time, did I come to know that plays were being performed, plays with plots, with meaning!  Only then could I begin to enjoy Kathakali with my mind as well as my eyes, ears and aesthetic sensibility. 

It was a little book by another English-speaking Kathakali enthusiast, David Bolland, that first made the plays intelligible.  Bolland’s A Guide to Kathakali, published by National Book Trust, New Delhi, in 1980, provides brilliant scene-by-scene synopses, in one or two sentences each, for 36 of the most frequently performed Kathakali plays.  These synopses, along with a list of the characters, with their make-up types indicated, were enough to help an otherwise mystified viewer to grasp some meaning and “follow the plot” of these 36 plays.  It is for 33 of these plays, plus one not summarized by Bolland (Pattabhisheka), that I have taken the next step of composing librettos in English verse for the dialogue/soliloquy passages and the connecting narrative text, so that the viewer can follow the meaning of the songs and acting as the Kathakali play goes on.

These plays, written from the late Sixteenth Century on, in Manipravala, the language of Kerala at that time, tell stories mostly based on events narrated in the two Indian epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, or in the Puranas, another vast reservoir of religious lore.  I determined to learn these stories to the best of my ability, in order to increase my understanding of this unique art form, and to put these poetical plays into easy-to-read English verse so that others might better appreciate them.  Thus began fifteen years (1988-2003) of  “transcreation”-- a labour of love for my golden years.   (Being transcreations from a poetical text in one language to a poetical text in another, my compositions are by no means literal translations.)   I would sit for hours with one or another of my collaborators as he read one of the plays in its obscure language, taking notes and clarifications as he told me the story in his best English, described the setting and identified the characters, explaining their roles in the epic or Puranic literature and, of course, the motives and activities assigned to them by the poet-playwright in the play at hand.  From these conversations and rough translations, my copious notes, research in outside sources and many, many Kathakali performances, I have rendered into English verse 34 of the most beloved Kathakali plays and have published them in four volumes over the period 1993 to 2003.  The Web version consists of these four volumes in their entirety, even though this results in some repetition.

A Note on Kathakali Costuming and Make-Up by Character Type

It takes repeated viewings of the Kathakali plays to become familiar with the characters who, in the main, are “stock” characters, costumed according to type.  God, hero, woman, villain or anti-hero, brahmin (priest), demon, demoness, hermit or sage, semi-barbaric forest-dweller—each has his own particular costume and make-up.  Then there are a few “Special” costumes for animal or bird characters in major roles, or for a human being transformed into a beast.  Other human characters who play only a passing role share the more naturalistic minukku (radiant) facial make-up of the female characters but wear a conventionalized costume and headgear somewhat suitable to their “profession” (messenger, merchant, wrestler, etc.)  The unique make-up for all the characters is applied by the actors themselves, except for the rice-paste and paper chutti worn by some characters to frame the face and emphasize the facial and eye muscles by which they express emotion.  The character type being played by each member of the cast is noted at the beginning of each play, under the heading "MakeUp". All of the character types and a few “Special” characters are illustrated, and named, in this web version by the colour photos which originally appeared on the covers of the four books. 

The author can be contacted at:

jane (at) pilaar (dot) com

This way to the plays...