6. Audience expectations and reception

I do not claim to be able to provide, at this point in time, a well-researched and analysed evaluation, but this report would not be complete without a word about the reception of Kattaikkuttu in the Netherlands and Belgium.

What were the expectations of the Western audiences, and, perhaps more importantly, what were the expectations of the organizers/sponsors of the tour with regard to the Kattaikkuttu performances? The theatrical shows formed part of a larger cultural programme organized on the occasion of the celebration of fifty years of Indian Independence. This programme also included an exhibition of modern Indian painting centring on the theme 'Kali: Mother and Beast' ('Kali: Moeder and Monster'), Indian architecture, Indian-English literature by women writers, classical Indian dance and music, and the popular (Hindi) film.

The organization of these components was taken care of by different professional and amateur institutions, which in one way or the other were linked to the particular artistic expression they supported. Fund raising on the basis of budgets provided by these institutions was a collective effort under the aegis of by two paid co-ordinators employed somewhat ad hoc by the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam.

The decision-making processes with regard to the organization of the cultural programme, and, consequently, the selection of the cultural events to be presented as well as the distribution of funds, remained extremely vague. It appeared to be largely in the hands of that part of the art establishment, which traditionally organizes the performance of non-western cultures in the Netherlands. In addition to the artistic performances and exhibitions, the cultural programme was geared to initiating a discussion about the position of Indian art and culture -- described as fluctuating between tradition and change -- fifty years after India became an independent, secular nation-state with a democratically elected government.

The fact that Kattaikkuttu survived the selection out of a vast range of other options offered by Indian theatre is in itself something of a miracle. Networking and the perseverance of an organization dedicated to the interests of the theatre, and a basic will ingness on the part of the main decision-makers to fund the tour, made Kattaikkuttu the sole representative of Indian folk culture, i.e. that part of Indian culture shared by the majority of India's population.

Reactions collected at random from Western spectators indicated that it was precisely Kattaikkuttu's folk character that had attracted them to the performances and that this had indeed been able to fascinate them. Western audiences have been exposed to this type of performances much less frequently than to expressions of classical Indian culture. Members of the audiences cited the directness of the theatre form and the contact between the actors and the spectators as aspects they especially enjoyed; the folk element -- however that should be defined -- was often described as refreshing. Participants in the workshops, who looked at the theatre from the point of view of professional actors, were struck by the physical nature of the performances, the Kattaikkuttu actors ' use of performance space, their voice production, and the differences in the transmission of the tradition.

In the promotion leaflets the organizers of the theatre events advertised the performances as the sacral theatre of the lower castes. Varying according to the preferences expressed at the different performance venues audiences were offered the possibil ity to witness a puja (worshipping of the gods) and a make-up session on stage and/or an introduction to the tradition. This promotion strategy evoked aspects of Western oriental imagery described by Edward Said (Said 1978, passim), but it also seemed to drew attention to the fact that groups of lower social and economic standing, too, can produce culture that should be seen in the West. Thus it aimed to appeal intuitively to audiences in search of a fictive mysticism, or sacrality, suggesting that this has disappeared from our Western society, while at the same time it underlined the political correctness to present this theatre form.

Elsewhere I have argued that Kattaikkuttu's sacrality arises from the dramatic material and the dramatic context in which it is acted out (de Bruin 1994, chapter 4). It requires the involvement in the performance of the narrative of both the performers and the members of the audience. As interactive participants in the Kattaikkuttu tradition they share similar sets of expectations with regard to the form, content and effects of the performance. The transposition of Kattaikkuttu performances on to a Western stage dramatically reduces the potential sacrality of such events. As a consequence, the artists -- engaged in a process of re-making ritual into art -- automatically left out the puja, which is normally performed at the beginning of every performance.

Putting on the make-up forms part of the process of the identification of the actor with the character he is going to perform. Being neither self nor other, the actor feels vulnerable to outside influences during the make-up process. And in spite of the fact that also in Tamil Nadu children peep into the make-up room to see what is going on, the putting on of the make-up is, therefore, not a public event. Yet in accordance with the golden rule that every performance should be modelled on the wishes of the (village) audience (kiramattin istam), which is ingrained into their performance practice, the artists felt compelled to consent to the request of the organizers to perform a public puja and make-up session so as to fulfil the organizers' promise of a glimpse into the theatre's sacrality.

A recurring point raised in the reception of the performances was the problem of the language. Whereas some spectators said that the fact that they could not, and did not expect to be able to, follow the narrative word by word did not disturb them at all, others argued that this provided a considerable obstacle in their enjoyment and understanding of the performance.

Film 3

Comment by member of audience: ... even if you don't understand a word of it, you can still laugh... [tape 4, 01:34'05"-12".] 341KB, filetype: mov

Film 4

Comment by member of audience: ...the language barrier is a considerable obstacle... [tape 4, 01:27:22 to 01:27:40] 443KB, filetype: mov

The running of titles on top of or next to the stage so as to provide a translation of the text spoken on stage was frequently suggested as a solution to this problem. The provision of titles for non-western theatre productions has become an accepted practice in the West (including Japan). However, in addition to being expensive, this solution can work only if the actors do not deviate too much from their lines or from the sequence of the dramatic scenes. In a basically oral tradition such as Kattaikkuttu, where texts in performance are not produced on the basis of written, fixed scripts, the running of titles may not be that easy. Apart from unanticipated surprises when the pre-programmed titles no longer fit the dramatic action on stage, the attempt to fix the verbal text and the dramatic action into the straight jacket of a scripted translation may seriously affect the inherent flexible nature of the theatre (see on this flexibility de Bruin 1994, passim).

I hope that in this report I have been able to show something of the excitement as well as of the great artistic pressure under which the Kattaikkuttu artists, performing outside their conventional context before an audience whose tastes and expectations they could only guess, had to operate. The tour reflected -- to repeat the words used by Rob Boonzajer Flaes during his introduction of the PAATI programme -- elements of the dream and the nightmare which determines the lives of performers all over the world.