Cathy Spagnoli provides...

A GLIMPSE OF KOREA THROUGH STORIES

Nirmala Seshadri
February 17th 2008


What do you do when your daughter who's working towards her Class 12 final exams needs that small break in her study routine? Often we find that apart from stepping out for a meal and getting back to the grind, there isn't much else to do. Plays and movies tend to take up too much time. Having to jostle through a crowd hardly makes for a relaxed evening.

But two days ago, Friday the 15th to be precise, we enjoyed the perfect little outing. The Indo Korean Centre organised an evening of storytelling by Cathy Spagnoli, who has done a great deal of research in this field in Korea. The session was held at Chamiers- a short and sweet drive from our home. The other option was to listen to Paul Theroux to Landmark which would have meant battling through evening traffic, getting all stressed out about parking and then being at the mercy of the question askers at such sessions. This, on the other hand, was going to be a performance moment of sorts.

To be honest this was the first storytelling moment I would be experiencing and I didn't know quite what to expect. The space, tastefully done up, was intimate and inviting. It was a refreshingly small group of people who were obviously there not to be seen, but to listen. And to the credit of Rathi Jaffer and her team at InKo Centre they seem to have a way of organising these informal, intimate and insightful sessions with simplicity, yet panache.

Now over to Cathy Spagnoli who has shared hundreds of stories in a variety of settings across Asia, USA and Canada, with audiences of all ages. Her visit to Chennai this time is aimed at bringing alive Korea through stories. She says, "Korea holds an important place in Asian history. Yet because of its physical location, Korea has often and wrongly, been viewed as a 'shrimp between two whales.' Yet despite its small size, its challenging location and its turbulent history, Korea has a very rich and unique culture. As a storyteller and writer who has collected and shared Korean stories for many years, I have been blessed by the kindness of Koreans and amazed at their energy and will. I am eager to share, in my 'adopted' city of Chennai, some of the stories that Koreans have told me as important pieces of their cultures."

It is perhaps relevant to mention at this point that Cathy has been married for the last 30 years to the Chennai sculptor, Paramasivam. They live with their 28 year old son, Manu, on Vashon Island, which is a 20-minute ferry ride from Seattle. They also spend time in their second home, Cholamandal.

"In my search for stories, I've slid through Indonesian rice fields, sipped sake with Japanese epic singers, met Korean monks in high mountain temples, hiked the Himalayas with Tibetan dancers, marvelled at Kamishibai Festivals, and shared tea with warmhearted Southeast Asian refugees." That evening she also shared how she broke her wrist while coming down a mountain in Korea and was carefully brought to safety by a Korean couple. And then her experience with both Western and traditional Korean medical treatment there.

During the spellbinding session that lasted just over an hour, Cathy subtly interwove actual stories, with tales of how she arrived at these tales, with insights into Korean culture and into the history and art of storytelling in Korea. All this was done very seamlessly. I found myself not being fully aware of where one ended, where the other began. I just let Cathy carry me through it all with the one device that she used in a way that only a master storyteller can- Voice.

I have never been one for stories. I often find myself losing threads and getting distracted. Even when it comes to jokes, I am usually the one who laughs last, and that too after the joke has been explained to me. I can never ever repeat a joke.

But that evening I sat wide-eyed receiving all that Cathy had to share. After a long time I felt like a child in the way that I listened with fascination. And yet it was the adult in me that related to the little moral at the end of each story. And so in my own way I was moving seamlessly in and out of the child and the adult. It was a delightful experience and a new one too. The session had an interactive element to it too. Cathy narrated one of the stories through sign language in addition to voice, which had the entire audience shouting out words to fill in the blanks.

Cathy's decision to end with the ghost story was a brilliant one. It was indeed the high point in the evening. All lights were dimmed and she began frightening even the adult in me. With that powerful and versatile voice, she carried us through fear, pathos.

Frankly I feel the evening should have ended on that note, as Cathy had planned. The ending, that could have been a dramatic one, became an anticlimax of sorts when, at the request of an audience member, Cathy went into the telling of a Native American tale. The focus was shifted and somehow diffused. In spite of the tangential ending it was a delightful, insightful and refreshingly unpretentious evening.

As a fitting conclusion, the authors on the blog spent the rest of the evening eating, chatting and communing with Nature at Chamiers.



Some of the information in this piece has been obtained from InKo Centre's magazine "FOCUS" (Issue No. 4).
Photograph of Cathy Spagnoli is from www.cathyspagnoli.com

Vasanthi on: "Sangati Arinja" and "Moonshine and Skytoffee"- Two Plays

A Review

by Vasanthi Sankaranarayanan
February 4th 2008


Transformation is one of the most difficult processes – from ape to man from man to superman, or from one literary form to another – such as short story or poem to a play or a play to a film. Only a person who can get the essence of two forms and transfer that essence from one form to another can attempt this. And yet this is what Paul Mathew from Perch did as he prepared a playscript for Rajiv Krishnan and team from the stories of Vaikom Mohammed Basheer, a literary author who transformed the Malayalam language itself and put his own individual stamp on it. Of course, another transformation had already taken place, when the short stories written in Malayalam was translated into English by V. Abdullah and R.A. Asher.

The task was an onerous one – Paul did it four years back when Rajiv’s group did the play “Moonshine and Skytoffee”. At that time he had combined only two short stories, “Premalekhanam”(A Love Letter) and “Mucheettu Kalikkarante Makal” (Cardsharper’s Daughter). Yet, even then the ingenuity of combining these stories and making them into a cogent and meaningful play script was evident in the treatment. A familiarity with the village background where both the stories are located must have helped. The village tea shop as a meeting place must have also suggested as to how the play could proceed. Yet, on the whole it was plausible and therefore held together as a play. But, this time the task was not so simple. Seven short stories have been used as background material for the play script and a narrative has been woven out of them. The stories do not have the same background. They are not all located in the village itself. How would one combine these seemingly different and strange stories and make into a workable script? What is the common thread that can unite these seemingly different stories? Paul has very cleverly hit upon a device – introduce the author as a character of the plays. Then it could be shown as a part of his experiences, memories, dreams or imaginary wanderings. Basheer the author himself is there either as a character, a narrator, a commentator or an observer. This solves the problem effectively. The audience are at no time sure when the characters on stage are actual characters from the short stories, or the figments of the author’s imagination or recollections from his experiences. So, having introduced the author as a character, the texture of the play changes, it is no more the experiences of a group of village people, but even a part of the dreams and experiences that the author had during his life and travels. The spectrum grows much bigger, the perspective becomes more universal. It gives greater scope for the director to use theatrical devices, music, dance, masks, props. It becomes a saga, not the story of one person, one family or even one region. It becomes a travelogue, a peep into the author’s inner thoughts and soul and thereby richer and more fulfilling as a visual experience. And what is the title that was given for this saga? “Sangati Arinja?” means “Have you heard?” Can you have a better title for the stories related by a clever story teller? The communication between the author and the audience of the play becomes more intense and telling.

If Paul’s job was onerous, Rajiv’s job as the director of the play was even more onerous. He had to have a group of actors who are so fluid and flexible that they can transform themselves to different characters – from men to women, from women to men, from a village idiot to a transvestite and then to a mystic. From a roadside Romeo to young Basheer, from a mere villager to a doctor, from a villager to a tragic soldier and then to an unfortunate lover. From a one eyed card sharper to a shapely secretary. The shifts were mercurial and instantaneous. Yet, the group of young actors managed these acts of transformation effectively. Was that all the transformation there was? A young girl takes the role of a fat villager with a body as twisted as a spider. All of them turned into masked beings, maybe destitutes and drunkards who surround a village brothel madame. Were these done only through costume changes and movement changes? Not exactly. They became whatever role they took on and gave each role their individual touch. Not an easy task. The director must have guided them and at the same time given free reign to their imaginations. Also, they are young, passionate actors – they do not care how long they are on stage or what kind of roles are given to them. They are actors, their job is to act, whatever the role demanded they would try and achieve. To infuse such a spirit in a group of actors is no mean job. Rajiv has achieved that and deserves praise. His own deep interest in theatre, his passion for perfection, his imagination and far-sightedness in seeing pure theatre in Basheer’s stories ( one does not know where reality ends and drama takes over), all these are commendable. It was his research that woke other people to the fact that two thousand and eight is Basheer Centenary year and should be celebrated capturing the many-faceted nature of this unusual writer and human being.

He had a team of able assistants – foremost among them are Kaveri under whose initiative a new organization has evolved – Perch (Performers of Chennai); there is an irony to this title. This group does not claim that they are amateur or professional actors; they are performers; performers is a word which can be applied not to actors alone, but to musicians, gypsies, circus troupes, magicians, story tellers, dancers and even human beings in general (Remember, Shakespeare, all the world is a stage and all men and women actors!); Salaam, Kaveri for choosing such a name; and Natesh who assisted him with his earlier research on Basheer, his surroundings, his family, the people among whom he lived and who created a minimalistic stage, where ordinary props became unusual objects – a vessel, a table, a rod and a needle became a gramaphone, the eating plates gramaphone records, a cane stand with umbrellas hanging around, the mangosteen tree , a set of shelves the wall of a prison, three car tyres a well, some red blobs a rose garden, a water hose pipe a long nose. Here is a case where a whole village, interior and exterior of buildings such as walls or a haunted house were created out of these objects. Just a nudge to the imagination of a discerning viewer, no elaborate sets, the hand of a master art director could be seen in those. The lighting was very unusual, the soft, and yet radiant light of a Kerala village was effectively captured. Sound was also one of the major assets of this play. The songs that Basheer liked were woven into the play as mood creators and they tugged at your heartstrings, reminding the audience of lost worlds and lost innocence. If Basheer saw this play he would have wept and said “Not a dull moment” as he did when he watched veteran Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s film, “Mathilukal” based on Basheer’s novel.

All the actors did their roles well. Yet, some stood out, Paul Mathew as Basheer, Ishwar as young Basheer and Kader, Aparna as Jameela and many other women, Prakash as the Namboodiri, Dayal as the soldier and the lover, Jagan as the village idiot, the transvestite and the mystic. The play was two hours long and yet, one never felt the passage of time, because there were no set changes, no delays in costume changes, why, hardly any break in the flow of the play. The use of Malayalam, Tamil and Hindi suitably interspersed with the English script was also another remarkable feature of this play. Starting with a regional base it grew like a banyan tree, all encompassing, universal and touching the hearts of all kinds of audiences. The range of emotions which were shown were stunning. Simplicity, humour, pathos, tragedy, love, cruelty, it touched all aspects of emotional acting. At no time was it stagey or artificial. It retained its naturalness and spontaneity with amazing ease. And yet, it did not slip into caricaturing or undisciplined exhibition of excess or obvious acting.

The greatest success of this play is that it captured Basheer, the man, the writer, the mystic and the agonizing soul of an eternal wanderer. It offered a glimpse of this many-faceted genius with alarming simplicity. At no stage did it distort or spoil the vision of the author. “From a story teller, he became the story itself”, M.T. Vasudevan Nair, the great writer of Malayalam described Basheer thus. Rajiv, Paul Mathew, Natesh and Kaveri and their team unraveled this story to the audience of Chennai effectively.