Kochi: It is going to be a long journey. Not just for Bhima. Or Keechaka. Everyone at the camp for the play Chayamukhi, based on the interaction between Bhima and Keechaka, is making journeys of their own.
The play opens with Bhima’s monologue, which starts with the line: “How much more distance to be covered?” Thus begins his journey, in search of his true love in life – only to realise that his love was never returned.
On another front the play is a journey for actor Mohanlal, who plays Bhima. “This character has always been at the receiving end of failures. This is a celebration of a failed man,” he said, before he gets a whole transformation as the character at the rehearsal camp at Agastya Ashram, Kureekad near here.
For his fellow actor Mukesh, this is another journey. “We have been planning to do a full-length play for the last two-and-a-half years. We wanted to do a play that could be understood by all, but different in subject and treatment. The aim was to bring back the esteem that Malayalam theatre once enjoyed,” he said.
For the playwright and director of the play Prasanth Narayanan, this is an attempt to approach the epic from a new direction. For him, Keechaka is a poet and lover, who loves flowers and celebrates the winter festival to the fullest. Even Bhima regrets killing him, though he does so only because Keechaka deviated from accepted norms of the society.
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