PHARAOH at TNC until 3/31! EXODUS VILLAIN REIMAGINED IN TEXT PERFORMED IN RARE KATHAKALI STYLE OF SOUTH INDIA

PHARAOH at Theater for the New City- March 31

PHARAOH is a riverting 75 minutes, where the the Biblical story, from the perspective of the king of Egypt, is not just told but  enacted in an emotional poetic dance-movement tradition rarely seen in the West. I was stunned by a PHARAOH, I had never imagined, with human concerns and political needs, like workers for the Pyramids. And in this version, Moses stutters. 

MISHA SHULMAN (playwright), a seated narrator in black, voices all the characters, while Kalamandalam John, founder and Director of Kalatharangini Kathakali School in South India, performs the play using vibrant traditional Indian dance drama and elaborate makeup. Everything is in English. Michael Posnick directs. 

The production was inspired in 2008 when Shulman was in Kerala to watch a fifteen-day play called the Asokavanikangam, or the Asoka Tree Garden, performed in the Kudiyatam, Sanskrit theater tradition. Longing to make a parallel play, Shulman imagined a staging of the Exodus story, about the inner life of Pharaoh. Kalamandalam John performs with the elaborate costume, colorful makeup, intricate gestures and expressive facial movements of Kathakali. They are accompanied musically by Galen Passen on Sitar and Tripp Dudley on drums.

Shulman writes that exploring the inner world of Pharaoh “offers both theological and political possibilities that go against the grain of Jewish tradition. The attitude toward Pharaoh is mirrored today in our greatest national anxieties and fears, as well as the defensiveness and self-righteousness those fears often produce.

The inability, or perhaps refusal of mainstream Judaism to see the Palestinian experience can, to my mind, be traced back to Pharaoh. The Exodus story is us versus them, with truth on our side and vanity and stubbornness on theirs. ‘Them’ is represented by Pharaoh, who gets beaten down to dust along with the rest of his people. If we can reduce the greatest civilization of the ancient world to ‘false’ and ‘cruel,’ how easy it becomes to do the same to the Palestinian people. Terrorists at best, a non-existent people more likely.”

He continues, “For Jews, the current war has brought to light the terrifying urgency of reworking our relationship with victimhood and blame. Which pieces of our national psyche, we must ask, need be preserved, and which reshaped to fit the twenty-first century? By re-examining the story of our national birth, this play aims to offer a first step in that process. Humanity seems to be at a crossroads: either we continue down this path of vilification of the other, or will we begin to see those we consider to be villains as human beings. In theological terms we ask: does the belief in one god mean that all other gods are false, or that everything and everyone are part of one great oneness?”

Among Shulman’s plays produced by Theater for the New City are “Apricots” (2009) a political Israeli-Palestinian comedy, “The Fist,” (2004) about the dilemma of Israeli Army refuseniks, “Desert Sunrise” (2005)described as “elegant and affecting” by George Hunka in The New York Times and “Martyrs Street” (2015) the intertwining stories of two residences in Hebron, a city in the West Bank, about to be evacuated by the Israeli authorities

 As an actor, Shulman has performed in many plays around the world with the Living Theatre, with DADA New York, and at the Toronto Clown Festival. 

In 2019, he was ordained as a rabbi and founded the School for Creative Judaism, that brings together religion, art and activism and is Rabbi of The New Shul (www.newshul.org).

Dr. Kalamandalam John is founder and Director of Kalatharangini Kathakali School. Born in Kerala in 1955, he trained in Kathakali for nine years, eight hours a day at Kerala Kalamandalam under Guru (professor) C. Padmanabhan Nair and Vijayakumar. He studied Sanskrit and Kathakali literature under Prof. Unnikrishnan Elayadu. In 1977 he was awarded the A.D. Bolland Gold medal for the best Kathakali student. In 1978 he was awarded the government of India scholarship. He has  taught both foreign and Indian students in Kerala Kalamandalam. As a member of the Kalamandalam troupe, he toured all over India and abroad. Dr. John is the first ever Christian Kathakali actor. He includes “Kalamandalam” in his name since graduating from the famed school in 1977.

The Kalamandalam was founded in 1930 to preserve the cultural traditions of Kathakali, the stylized dance drama of Kerala. Kathakali is the classical dance-drama of Kerala, South India, which dates from the 17th century and is rooted in Hindu mythology. It is a unique combination of literature, music, painting, acting and dance performed by actors wearing extensive make up and elaborate costume who perform plays which retell in dance form stories from the Hindu epics.

Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue (between 9th & 10th St.)