(Lalitha Venkat speaks to Professor Ramanujam at Thirukurungudi)
Professor Ramanujam is a well-known Tamil theater director, a writer, a translator and a keen revivalist. He has worked on reinterpreting classics from Greek and Latin plays and rewriting many famous Greek tragedies for Tamil theater audiences. He has been involved as professor at Thanjavur University and has also been a director of several Tamil plays.
He has been associated with Na Muthuswamy of Koothu-P-Pattarai for over 20 years and travels extensively within Tamilnadu as consultant and as a lecturer about theater.
For the last 5 years, Prof. Ramanujam has been involved in the revival and reconstruction of the 13th century theatre ritual of Kaisika Natakam in the temple of Thirukurungudi in Tirunelveli district in Tamilnadu. This is a project supported by Arangham Trust and it has involved his working with artistes, musicians and scholars, writers and members of the traditional arts community associated with temples. The first revival performance after a gap of 50 years was staged in 1998 on the day of Kaisika Ekadasi and since then it has become an annual all night drama ritual in the temple town of Thirukurungudi.
