Into Kannada theatre-maker Lakshman KP’s ‘Theatre of Imagination’

If you drive 75 km eastwards of Bangalore, towards Kolar, you will likely come across Aadima Culture Centre, a cultural institution co-founded by Dalit poet, playwright and philosopher K. Ramaiah. Over the years, it is where many young theatre actors and directors have experimented with children’s theatre, one that is rooted in caste consciousness. Born out of the Dalit movement, it is here that KP Lakshman had an epiphany of sorts.

“I think we were rehearsing the play ‘Nayi Thippa’ at that time,” recalls Lakshman. “Even though we were training next to this small village of 5-6 houses, we had nothing to do with the community that lived next to us.” 

On one of those days, a child was playing outside the rehearsal space with no adults around. Lakshman remembers not thinking twice about it until Ramaiah quipped: why not let the child into the rehearsal? 

“He said, you would not only look after it but also learn something from the child and the child would have learned from you,” recollects Lakshman. “Rehearsals can be done this way too, why don’t you try?”

Such a possibility was very new to Lakshman at the time. He was still under the grasp of strict rules that traditional, laboratory theatres run on: actors are expected to train in isolation, where one immerses oneself in the character, letting go of the ‘I’. But here was an idea that believed art need not happen in isolation, but rather considered it a part of life. 

One of his formative experiences, it shaped Lakshman’s understanding of theatre today: a theatre that is firmly rooted in life, community and empathy. “When I think about this now, I realise that the art of the marginalised can never be seen in isolation from the community it is part of,” he says confidently. “Learning can happen anywhere.” 

Representation of Imagination

As a young theatre maker, Lakshman was strongly influenced by European absurdist theatre. Despite his immense love for writers such as Albert Camus, he soon realised that in spite of this love, “it was not [my] language”. 

Today, the idea of “Representation of Imagination” is at the core of his practice which has its own vocabulary, where Dalit characters are more than their “issues”. When Lakshman speaks about “Representation of Imagination”, he is referring to the wholeness of the Dalit experience that theatre needs to capture. “I mean, everything around a Dalit character needs to be considered – be it their dreams, aspirations, desires,” he says. “Each has their own story.”

Coming from a village near Nelamanagala, located on the outskirts of Bangalore, Lakshman is shaped by the everyday experience of living amid a vibrant community where art is not something that exists in separation but is part of the way people live. “We used to dance when the animal skin was tanned and treated and turned into the thamate,” he recalls, referring to the percussion instrument. “For me, that image is theatre.” 

But this conception of an inclusive idea of theatre that is ubiquitous seems to be a result of a long process of learning and unlearning. 

From KV Subbanna’s Ninasam, K. Ramaiah’s Aadima, M. Ganesh’s Janamanadaata to, finally, Intercultural Theatre Institute (ITI) in Singapore, Lakshman’s experience with theatre has been wide-ranging. 

He is especially thankful for his time in ITI, which has profoundly impacted the way he approaches his work today. His actor training there was focussed on immersing oneself in four Asian performance traditions: Kutiyattam, Noh Theatre, Beijing Opera and Wayang Wong.  A 3-year diploma programme, ITI’s Diploma in Intercultural Theatre defines itself as “a performer-centred, practice-oriented training with a focus on intercultural work and original creation”.

Dismantling Hierarchies

“There is no guru-shishya tradition there like we have here,” Lakshman says referring to his time at ITI. “There is an autonomy where the actor is treated like a co-creator.”

In Indian theatre, much like elsewhere, there exists a hierarchy of roles. The playwright comes first as the creator of the world the characters inhabit, then the director who makes the characters on the pages come alive, and finally, the actor. The actor seems to only exist to bring the character to life in accordance with the director’s vision. 

However, in Lakshman’s plays, the actor is not an empty vessel nor a puppet with strings. He is an active participant in the creation of the work. This is especially significant when one is an actor from a marginalised community, already living on the fringes of society and forced to take on a passive role. 

“I used to think that we needed to have a text to make a play,” says Lakshman. “But now I know a play can emerge from anywhere.” 

Take his 2019 play We the People as an example, his first major work after his return from Singapore. An episodic piece about the Indian constitution and whom it belongs to, We the People is ultimately about the Ambedkarite value of equality for all.

“I knew I was not just teaching them theatre but I was also teaching them Ambedkar,” insists Lakshman. “I wanted the play to be an orientation [on the Constitution] to Ambedkar Dalit youth.”

When the actors first came together, there was no text. He recalls watching the 10-episode long series on the constitution together, made by Lok Sabha channel, apart from the close reading of the Constitution.

“We wrote the play together, as we rehearsed together,” he recollects. “We did a lot of improvisations as we read together.”

After We the People, whatever plays he created, Lakshman was certain he wanted to do it in such a process: one that centred the voices of the people making it.

Alternative Pedagogies 

In his more recent and widely-acclaimed Daklakatha Devikavya, the theatremaker attempts to bring Kannada poet and social activist KB Siddaiah’s monumental work onto to stage. The length of Khanda Kavya, a long narrative poem that is shorter than epic poetry, and its apparent inscrutability challenged Lakshman. When the actors came together to devise the play, they too were clueless.

“I have studied theatre for so long, I have come to Singapore, learnt the form and I thought I had become a professional, and here was this poetry. How do I bring this onto the stage? I felt I had no tools!” 

But what he did know was that he wanted to use two instruments – the vadya and thamate – which are commonly present in the folk rituals in his community but never on stage. Growing up, Lakshman remembers thinking of these instruments as music, only to discover they were not considered art. So, these instruments become his starting point to “physicalise and translate [the poetry] onto stage” by using “the imagination of space and choices of colour.”

If one looks closely, an alternative theatre practice starts to emerge in the choices that Lakshman makes. As mentioned earlier, he chooses his stories and actors from the marginalised communities and treats them as co-creators, thus dismantling the hierarchies. He also stresses the importance of leisure as he finds the gruelling physical work, often dubbed as “rigour”, which is a standard theatre practice is not relevant to his actors, none of whom “have grown up comfortably”. He believes in customising his pedagogy to the community he works in.

It may be too easy to call this Dalit theatre or Ambedkarite theatre. But Lakshman’s theatre practice is not prescriptive, but descriptive which ultimately is about the expression of a world that has been consistently kept out of the stage. His plays use the stage to give dignity to the instruments, stories and actors as individuals – that have long been relegated to the margins – so that their imagination can find an outlet and be represented. 

However, Lakshman is critical of a practice that demands one to lose oneself in the art and let go of the ‘I’. “For a person, let alone an artist coming from a Dalit background, the construction of an I itself is a huge feat,” he says. “The self has been scattered and shattered, dismissed and smashed. It is fully damaged. Through my theatre, I want us to reconstruct this ‘I’ together and claim dignity through art.” 

In his plays, the actors on stage are individuals and they bring their own experiences on to stage: “I want to know them as people. I want them to keep their agency.” 

Since he devises each of his plays with actors, Lakshman cannot escape the question of the possibilities of theatre as an art form. He insists he began his work on Daklakatha by asking the most basic question of all: What is theatre?

As someone who has learnt various “acting techniques” in an international setting, he is now questioning them in the context of the work he does. “I see there is a lot of focus on mastering a technique. But what does Grotowski’s technique have to do with an actor from a small village?” 

Insisting on checking what they are teaching in cultural centres such as National School of Drama (NSD), Ninasam and Drama School Mumbai (DSM), Lakshman says these schools “shouldn’t teach techniques, but vision, values, and tools” to the theatre maker.

“For me, theatre is not a technique. It is how to build something that has dignity, empathy and rationality.”

Amulya is a writer and translator based in Bengaluru. She has an MA in Cultural Studies from Goldsmiths, University of London. Her children’s play ‘Remember, Remember’ was published by Eklavya Books in 2022, as part of Think Arts’ Play/Write Residency.