கே.ஏ. குணசேகரனின் 'கந்தன் × வள்ளி': புராண மறுவாசிப்பும் ஒடுக்கப்பட்டோர் அரங்க அரசியலும்

K.A. Gunasekaran's 'Kanthan × Valli': Mythological Rereading and the Politics of the Theatre of the Oppressed

Abstract

This paper examines K.A. Gunasekaran (1955–2016), a pioneering figure in Tamil Dalit theatre and the foremost Tamil exponent of the "Theatre of the Oppressed," a form he adapted from Brazilian theatre-maker Augusto Boal to voice the lived realities of Dalits, tribal communities, and gender minorities in Tamil Nadu. Central to Gunasekaran's dramaturgical method is the deliberate subversion of canonical myth: taking narratives sanctified by centuries of devotional retelling and reading them against the grain of caste and patriarchal privilege. Focusing on his 2004 play Kanthan × Valli, this study traces how the traditional Valli–Murugan marriage myth is reconstructed as a site of feminist assertion, caste critique, and social accountability. Rather than portraying Valli as a passive tribal maiden elevated through divine marriage, the play reimagines her as an assertive, self-possessed woman who resists assimilation into upper-caste legitimacy structures. The paper further considers how folk performance idioms, open-air staging, and satirical figures such as the 'Sirippan' (jester) function as instruments of social critique, and situates the play within Boal's theoretical vocabulary of the 'spect-actor.' Ultimately, the study argues that Kanthan × Valli transforms myth from an instrument of ideological consent into a vehicle of political resistance.