26th March 2017
Meet the Artist – Deepan Sivaraman
Krishnayan at 12:00 (Entry Free)
Deepan Sivaraman is an Indian Theatre director, Scenographer and Academic. He is the founder of Oxygen Theatre Company based in Thrissur, Kerala. Deepan’s work is best understood as a theatrical experience that is at once dense and incisive. It offers a richly evocative interweaving of performative imagery, strong ensemble work by the actors and a sharp textual commentary.
It’s been nearly five decades since OV Vijayan imagined the mythical landscape of Khasak and gave Malayalis a novel to die for. Khasakkinte Ithihasam (The Legends of Khasak) continues to enchant readers with its intense lyricism and seamless weaving of myth and reality. It didn’t spawn imitations because few dared to walk the path of the maestro. Khasak was the Malayali’s Macondo, trespassers could be prosecuted. It is this sacred literary landscape that 40-year-old theatre director, Deepan Sivaraman, entered when he chose to stage a play for KMK Smaraka Kala Samiti, a theatre group in Thrikkaripur, a village in northern Kerala.The result is an exceptional production that challenges conventional wisdom about Vijayan’s novel and recreates a people and a landscape with potent political meaning.
