The Anger of Achilles

From The Anger of Achilles. On the still (freeze-frame): Achilles (Sadanam Krish­nankut­ty) and the mes­sen­ger (Anil Kumar).

Kathakali has a long-time tra­di­tion of por­tray­ing heroes and hero­ines who inhab­it the uni­verse of epic lit­er­a­ture, the lit­er­a­ture of rhap­sodes or recitants. With the Anger of Achilles staged in the Kathakali dance the­atre visu­als, vocal music and the Ker­ala per­cus­sion, The Ili­ad is giv­en its full epic dimen­sion, and extends the Kathakali reper­toire to world epics.

With Vazhen­ga­da Vijayan, Sadanam Krish­nankut­ty, Mar­gi Vijayaku­mar, K. Soman, Pradeep Kumar and Anil Kumar.

Vocal: Bal­achan­dran and S. P. Sajeev Kumar.
Per­cus­sion: Bal­a­sun­daran, Raja Narayanan and Bruno Paquet.
Cos­tumes and make up: Raja Narayanan, Nam­biarath Sivara­man and Appun­ni Tharakan.

Per­for­ma­tive lit­er­a­ture and chore­o­graph­ic arrange­ment:
RICHARD TREMBLAY

Light and stage design: JEAN-GUY LECAT

Sound: BRUNO PAQUET

Con­sul­tant writer: K. K. GOPALAKRISHNAN

The Anger of Achilles was first per­formed in Thris­sur (Ker­ala) by the Ker­ala Kala­man­dalam troupe mem­bers who Indi­an pre­miered the work at the Mum­bai NCPA Tata Audi­to­ri­um in 1991 with the assis­tance of the Sangeeth Natak Acad­e­mi and the cul­tur­al sec­tion of the Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion in Del­hi. The Octo­ber, 2000 inter­na­tion­al pro­duc­tion was made pos­si­ble thanks to Swadin Pro­duc­tions (Sin­ga­pore), the assis­tance of the Indo-Cana­di­an Insti­tute (fel­low­ship pro­gram), the trav­el grants from the Cana­da Coun­cil for the Arts and Le Con­seil des Arts et des Let­tres du Québec. Thanks to the Asian Muse­um, Sin­ga­pore, for archiv­ing. The work was last rehearsed at the Ker­ala Kala­man­dalam, in Jan­u­ary 2011 with Bal­a­sub­ra­man­ian, Ramadas, Krish­na Kumar and Chen­da Unnikrishnan.