Interestingly, kutiyattam usually does not stage entire plays. A single act from a play is considered the complete play and this is acted out elaborately – so elaborately that sometimes it takes as long as forty nights for it to be acted out. One play in particular when performed in its entirety, takes eighty-six days for a single presentation. Since the performances can be so long, the text recedes into the background as the actor takes over and the actor’s emotive skills, ability to elaborate, verbal skills and histrionics dominate the stage. These actors begin training as young as eight years old to be able to do these kinds of performances.
In kutiyattam, female roles are handled by women and not by men, which was not a common practice until more recently. Men’s roles, of course, are handled by men. The women who act on stage in kutiyattam are nangyars – women of the nampyar community. The nampyar men too are part of the kutiyattam theatre, but they do not act on stage, instead they play on a huge earthen drum called mizhavu. The male roles are handled by men of another community called chakyars. More recently they are accepting students outside of these communities to try and keep the tradition alive.
Important temples in Kerala all have special theatres called Koothambalams, which were built according to the traditional texts on Vaastusaastram Silparatnam’, and it is here that performances of Koodiyaattom are staged. Where Koothambalams do not exists, the performances are held in the ‘Valiambalam’ or entrance hall to the inner temple quadrangle.
