How the Ancient Sanskrit Play The Little Clay Cart Resonates Today

“Sold-out shows at Ranga Shankara!” read event promoter Bhoomija Trust’s ecstatic note on Instagram, a week ahead of the world premiere of Mrichchakatikam (The Little Clay Cart)—an adaptation of Sudraka’s classic, directed by G.Venu. This popularity was rare for Koodiyattam, India’s only surviving Sanskrit theatre form.

Historically associated with temples and the Chakyar community of Kerala, Koodiyattam has survived for over two thousand years with an unbroken chain of practice, making it the world’s oldest living dramatic tradition. The established repertoire of Koodiyattam largely comprises plays written by three Sanskrit dramatists of yore: Bhasa, Kulashekhara Varma, and Shaktibhadran, whose works draw inspiration from Hindu mythological stories and India’s greatest epics–Ramayana and Mahabharata. The staging of these plays is guided by elaborate production/acting manuals (attaprakaram).

Since the mid-twentieth century, Koodiyattam has stepped out of the temple and opened up to artists outside the Chakyar community, but it is still considered highbrow for its language and complex performance style—a blend of codified gestures, facial expressions, movements, chanting-speaking, and stylized acting. It’s not an easy watch for the average theatregoer.

Its pace is something I’ve struggled with, even as someone familiar with Koodiyattam. In its original format, plays, especially those performed as part of rituals in temple theatres, can last from ten hours to forty-one days. The form gives precedence to craft over plot, action, and dialogue, so sometimes you spend a long while watching nothing move on stage except the actor’s eyes. In the hands of a seasoned actor, even these prolonged moments are sheer magic, but they are testing nonetheless.

Since the mid-twentieth century, Koodiyattam has stepped out of the temple and opened up to artists outside the Chakyar community, but it is still considered highbrow for its language and complex performance style.

Veteran Koodiyattam artist, researcher, director, and acting coach G. Venu is bent on changing this for the contemporary audience. He first demonstrated it in 2002 with Shakunthalam, a production in Koodiyattam based on the most widely known Sanskrit play in the world: Kalidasa’s Abhijnanashakuntalam. Despite being a literary masterpiece, it had never been attempted as a play in Koodiyattam for the simple reason that there was no existing production manual for it. “Let’s make one then!” said Venu, taking up the challenge.

Earlier this year he took up another challenge, this time reimagining Mrichchakatikam in Koodiyattam for the first time. Like Abhijnanashakuntalam, Mrichchkatikam is known around the world. It has been translated into English, French, German, Hindi, and other languages, and its countless productions include an award-winning Hindi film adaptation in 1984. But the play did not enter Koodiyattam’s canonical repertoire in the original language of its writing until July 2025.

In Eager Anticipation

I was personally invested in the premiere of Mrichchakatikam for more reasons than one. As a disciple of G. Venu, I was eager to discover how he had adapted a behemoth of a play with ten acts and thirty characters into a condensed, two-and-a-half-hour performance. But more so, I wanted to see what creative liberties he had taken to build a bridge with the audience.

From the pre-show trailers, I knew to expect a stellar cast including stage favorites Kapila, G. Venu’s daughter, and Suraj Nambiar playing lead roles. Most of all, I was excited to witness the debut of Kapila’s eleven-year-old son, Aran, whom I’ve known since he was a baby.

Crawling through Bangalore’s peak hour traffic, I managed to arrive at Ranga Shankara ten minutes before gates opened, just in time for a bio break. The skip to the loo, however, put me at the back of the queue, and with Ranga Shankara’s open-seating policy, that meant I had to forfeit my chance for a middle seat in the circle. I scrambled up to find a spot in the balcony.

Koodiyattam plays were traditionally envisioned for intimate spaces with just a large oil lamp for lighting the actors. This immerses the audience in the experience and allows them to perceive even the most minute of movements. I had experienced Koodiyattam in both small and large theatre spaces, but this was the first time watching with a bird’s eye view.

Still, my seat was not bad, considering that it was Ranga Shankara—one of the few professionally designed thrust stage theatres in India with great sightlines and acoustics. This space, known for its diverse programming and mandate to support traditional theatre, was raised brick-by-brick by Arundhati Nag to honor her late husband and actor Shankar Nag (but that’s a story for another time).

At 7:40 p.m., the house lights went down on the 320-seater, which was bursting at the seams. A few latecomers who stumbled in, found spots on the aisles. Despite my compromised position, I sensed I was in for a treat.

Reimagining a Classic

Mricchakatikam is a love story and a political satire rolled into one. Set in the ancient Indian city of Ujjain, the action-packed plot revolves around a noble but impoverished merchant, Charudatta, who falls in love with Vasantasena, a celebrated courtesan. Their romance is threatened by the king’s lecherous brother-in-law Shakaara, who also desires Vasantasena. What follows is a tempest of misunderstandings, theft, false accusations, an apparent murder, and a near execution. But it all ends well: The lovers are united, Shakaara is brought to justice, and the city’s inept king Palaka is overthrown by a revolution instigated by a herdsman.

Distinct from classic Sanskrit plays that center gods and kings, Mrichchakatikam tells the story of ordinary people, featuring a spectrum of characters across social strata—courtiers, merchants, monks, courtesans, gamblers, and servants.

The performance opened to the sounds of the mizhavu, a large urn-like copper drum played with bare hands. Following this ceremonial prelude, the menacing voice of Shakaara was heard offstage: “Stop, Vasantasena, stop! Why should fear transform your tenderness?” The slimy antagonist was clearly in hot pursuit of the lead lady, and one expected to see him burst onto stage any second. But Vasantasena entered alone, running from wing to wing, as if chased. Shakaara was conspicuously missing, not just in this scene but the entire play!

“We didn’t cast for Shakaara,” the director responded when I quizzed him after the show. “It was my decision not to bring that vulgar character on stage. His presence is conveyed through suggestion and offstage speech. There was also the need to edit to a reasonable running time. So, I took out scenes, dialogues, and characters that felt unnecessary.”

Mrichchakatikam is often critiqued for having enough material for two plays. To adapt it to stage, G. Venu went through several edits before arriving at three hours in the final dress rehearsal. Even that he felt was a little too long for the audience, so he tightened the play to two hours and thirty minutes—a tough compromise for a form like Koodiyattam that demands elaboration. He focused instead on moments from the play that could be heightened via Koodiyattam’s unique acting style.

This was evident in the way some of the scenes played out. Sarvilaka (Nepathya Srihari Chakyar) breaking into Charudatta’s home to steal is one such moment. Sarvilaka mimed the whole act with such finesses that one could see the wall, the bricks he prized off, and the “pitcher-perfect” hole he created to slip through. There was a bit where the thief fumbles to retrieve a staff he’d left on the other side of the wall and maneuvering it through the hole—so imaginatively executed that it that provoked spontaneous applause.

The romance between Charudatta (Suraj Nambiar) and Vasantasena (Kapila Venu) also stood out, performed with dignity and tenderness. Even a minor character, like Vasantasena’s servant Karnapooraka (Pothiyil Renjith Chakyar), got his moment in the sun, through the elaboration of an incident where he subdues a rampaging elephant.

The play seemed like a montage of extraordinary moments of acting in Koodiyattam. However, the narrative felt choppy and may have been especially hard to follow for those unfamiliar with the story’s plot and complexly interwoven subplot. But then again, plot itself is secondary in Koodiyattam. The experience is more about relishing the moment than connecting the dots.

Building a Bridge

Sudraka’s Mrichchakatikam is verbose, but the writing style is simple, direct, and filled with humor. It is also bilingual, with elite characters speaking in Sanskrit and commoners slipping into the then vernacular dialect, Prakrit.

G.Venu played up these positives and presented a version filled with romance, intrigue, and, most of all, comedy. Using minimal dialogue in a combination of Sanskrit, Malayalam, and Kannada, with English subtitles for added comprehension, he cut through the language barrier and took the audience along from beginning to end.

I remember two moments that had the house in stitches: One happened when Samvahaka (Sankar Venkateswaran) lost a bet and unexpectedly broke the fourth wall to beg the audience (in Kannnada) for money. The other was when Charudatta’s foolish friend Maitreya (Kalamandalam Jishnu Pratap) unwittingly gave the casket of gems to the thief—a scene rendered in Malayalam.

The pacing of the play felt just right except for acts six through nine, which were compressed into a rushed narrative account, dense with information, delivered by the actor who played the gambler turned Buddhist monk (Sankar Venkateswaran).

Innovation is the need of the hour—innovation that comes not at the expense of the form but by staying true to it.

Rewriting Tradition

The climactic act stood out for how it was reimagined. This production discarded themes that appear regressive today. Charudatta’s wife preparing to self-immolate (as per ancient Hindu custom) and Vasantasena being offered the “dignified” position as Charudatta’s second wife were both erased from the storyline.

The director also amended the soft treatment of the antagonist. In the original, the villainous Shakaara is pardoned. But in Venu’s version, Vasantasena decides his fate by throwing the “sacrificial garland” at Shakaara, leaving him to the mercy of the mob. Venu’s rational was that “as a play that talks of inequalities, revolt, and the triumph of the common man, it deserves an uplifting end that speaks to today’s audience.”

The epilogue deserves a special mention for setting a new precedent. Going against tradition, Kapila (the female lead who played Vasantasena), performed the ritualistic closure Mutiyakkitta) typically reserved for the male lead. It was a deeply moving experience to see her make propitiatory offerings and chant the benediction (Bharatavakyam) for the wellbeing of the Earth and everyone present. It felt like a feminist gesture, a woman reclaiming her rightful space on stage.

In Koodiyattam’s defense, unlike other world theatre traditions, the female roles were always played by women. However, the women were always portrayed as shy and subservient. Mrichchakatikam challenges that stereotype.

Tradition is not static; it is a constantly evolving entity that must adapt to sociopolitical changes to remain relevant. Many custodians of traditional theatre forms such as Koodiyattam still treat it as something sacred that shouldn’t be tampered with, even at the danger of it remaining too elitist and remote for the modern world. Practitioners like G. Venu believe that innovation is the need of the hour—innovation that comes not at the expense of the form but by staying true to it:

No art can preserve its original form without change—the passage of time will not allow it. As a Koodiyattam practitioner, if I start to believe that I am a vehicle for a two-thousand-year-old form, then it is dead. Today’s Koodiyattam must be different from yesterday’s Koodiyattam. It is a living tradition only if it evolves.