Year-long celebrations to mark 75th anniversary of KPAC and birth centenary of Thoppil Bhasi

Year-long celebrations to mark 75th anniversary of KPAC and birth centenary of Thoppil Bhasi

The Kerala People’s Arts Club (KPAC), the decorated drama troupe associated with the Communist movement in the State, will organise year-long programmes to mark its 75th anniversary and the birth centenary of legendary playwright Thoppil Bhasi.

The celebrations will begin with a programme at Karthika Thirunal Theatre, Thiruvananthapuram, on May 22. It will be inaugurated by filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan at 5.30 p.m.

Following the inaugural function, the KPAC will stage a remake of the play Olivile Ormakal (Memories in Hiding), the theatrical adaptation of Bhasi’s autobiography of the same name. According to A. Shahjahan, secretary, KPAC, Olivile Ormakal is going to be staged after a gap of several years with slight changes.

Mr. Shahjahan said that programmes would also be organised in foreign countries to mark the occasions.

It is widely assumed that the KPAC came into being in 1950. According to the KPAC website, towards the end of 1950, N. Rajagopalan Nair, G. Janardhana Kurup and others decided to stage Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov in Malayalam. A public notice was printed in the name of KPAC but nothing came out of it. Ente Makananu Sari (My Son is Right), the first major play by the KPAC, was staged in 1951.

Around the same time, Bhasi, who was in hiding after being hunted by the police in connection with a violent communist uprising at Sooranad in Kollam, wrote the script for the historical play Ningalenne Communistakki (You Made Me a Communist) while on the run under the pseudonym Soman. The drama, “a protest against the feudal system that prevailed in Kerala,” made the clarion call to “rise and fight oppression”. It was first staged by the KPAC at Chavara in Kollam in December 1952. Thus began Bhasi’s long-term association with the KPAC. Olivile Ormakal was his last play (1992) under the banner of the KPAC.

The KPAC has so far staged 66 plays in the past seven decades, including 16 written/ directed by Bhasi.