CHRONOLOGY OF LIFE

“All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts ……………..”

- William Shakespeare

Teaching

On completion of his post graduation with English, he entered the profession of teaching at his Alma mater Mar Ivanios College 

THEATRE WORK

The inclination for performing art in Theatre began in him at rather early stages. Pillai acted in plays while in school and college and began writing plays for college and later for broadcasting for All India Radio, Trivandrum.

His more serious phase of Theatre career began with his association to Prof. G. Shankara Pillai, the versatile Malayalam theatre exponent who initiated in Kerala, theatre training and theatre education, professionally, with Nataka Kalari movement in the sixties. Pillai learned thoroughly from him theatre practices such as Ensemble and Total, and later got more erudite under the tutelage of masters like B.V. Karanth, Niranjan Goswami, Tapasen, Prof. Ramanujan, Badal Sircar, Suresh Avasthy, Kavalam Narayana Panikkar and others that he interacted creatively. Pillai had started earlier in Trivandrum his own theatre to produce plays written by him and classics from other languages. In the eighties, Pillai began his overseas journeys as part of learning and experimenting theatre as it is experienced abroad. He was in the University of Rome in Italy in 1980, on selection as the only candidate from India for one year for advanced training on modern theatre. He secured 1st rank and further experienced with drama in Italy, and contacts established with playwrights and greats in the field like Grotovski, Dario Fo, Julian Beck, F. Marotti and Eduardo Phillipo broadened his vision and upgraded his understanding of the medium.

His theatre training further under Richard Schechner in the Tisch School of Arts, New York University, U.S. and exposure to Afro-American and Euro Asian performances in the U.S. made his theatre approach still tangible, scientific and professional. The Fulbright Fellowship he obtained in the late eighties provided him the great opportunity of extensively watching and learning performances at Broadway and towards exploring the possibilities of the Actor, Space and Time on stage. In the nineties, Dr. Pillai further extended his theatre explorations to the scenarios of Japanese, Chinese and Indonesian play acting using his accessibility with persons active in theatre in these countries. Again, he went to Africa to learn the regional plays originating in that country in 2007. This added to refinement in Pillai’s building up of the structure of his plays, his spatial concepts and temporal innovations. As was his wont, Pillai drew inspiration and energy from the rich indigenous tradition prevailed in the art and history of Africa.  

His endeavours at experimentation and search of a new idiom in theater at this stage, are obviously reflected in his plays he then wrote, like, Vishwadarshanam, Tulasivanam, Agni, Kuchelagatha, the Death of a Nestling and The Golden Cranes. The new ambience and effect created in these attempts are  virtually attributable to his Chinese, Japanese and African learning and experimentation.

When Pillai directed plays of his own troupe and of others, they began to appear as refreshing theatre experience. Dr. Pillai  conducted innumerable theatre workshops in and out of the country successfully and  published 19 books including plays for children, major dramas, one act plays, translations, research papers and critical studies. His vital plays and works related to theatre are as following below:

1. Vishwadarshanam (Viewing the world): Published in 1977, this is an experimental drama dealing with the esoteric vision of promises and fulfillments. The play refers to the forces of  temptations interacting on the way of spiritual pursuits.
2. Tulasivanam (Forest of Tulasis): Published in 1979,  this play was written during the notorious emergency period in India. It contains, though, in a covert and dramatic manner, the urge for freedom and creativity and rebellion against suppression.
3. Agni (Fire): A drama published in 1982, inspired from the legendary Prometheus to enlighten the down trodden. This play won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi award.
4. Rangabhasha (Stage Language): Studies published in 1984 related to the basic stage language based on the author’s European theatre experiences.
5. Varavelppu (Reception): Drama published in 1985, dealing with the deception of a great leader by his own kin who is a typical contemporary politico.
6. Kuchelagatha (The tale of Kuchela): Play published in 1988 symbolically narrating the story of the struggling poor for survival. The relationship of Lord Krishna and Sudama provides symbolic backdrop to the work. The liberty the writer used for borrowing the name of the protagonist from the epic in the work caused controversy. The play was presented at the Asian Theatre festival in South Korea in 2003.
7. Pakshikkunjinte Maranam (The Death of a Nestling): This is a collection of one act plays dealing with serious comical and educational contents in realistic, symbolic and expressionist styles published in 1992. The plays were published individually in leading magazines of Kerala and later produced by theatre troupes as dramas all over India. Some of the plays have been translated into other Indian languages.
8. Suthradhara, Ethile, Ethile ..?  (Director whereto, which way.. ?): Written in 1993, the work consists of critical studies on European, Indian and regional theatres.  Their analysis of texts, trends and patterns are evaluated in the context of the organic perspective of the evolution of modern drama.
9. Kunji Chirakukal (Little Wings): These plays for children’s’ theatre published in 1994 have kiddish themes adapted from parables and tales of Sree Ramakrishna to cater to the educational and psychological needs of children growing up.
10. V.T. Bhattathiripad: This is a biography of the versatile Bhattathirippad, Kerala’s leading social reformer and pioneer of Malayalam playwriting. Successful attempt is made through the work to pay tribute to V.T. and highlight the nature of his contribution with emphasis on the rebellious content of his drama.
11. Aranginte Artha Thalangal The meaning and phases of theatre): Another attempt at critical studies of world theatre events and their regional bearing. This study published in 1998 throws light at the different dimensions of stage languages experimented, and their impact.
12. Swarnakokkukal (Golden Cranes): A set of plays done, again, for children’s performance. A collection of two plays, Swarnakokkukal published in 1999, deals with the incident of atom bomb explosion in Hiroshima based on the author’s firsthand experience with the peace workers at the bomb ravaged Hiroshima in Japan. This play has been later filmed with the title ‘Soumyam’. The latter part of the work imagines garden flowers refusing to bloom until mischievous kids mend their ways, as a moral employed to reform impressionable minds.
13. Oru Nadakam Engine Undakunnu (How a play is made?): This work, an enquiry into the creation and growth of a meaningful play, is an excellent guide for the students of theatre and playwrights alike.  The work travels historically and aesthetically to impart wisdom on the story of the origin of plays.

NON THEATRE WORK

Jail Diary by J.P.:
The writer took on himself the task of translating Jayaprakash Narayan’s famous work, Jail Diary, during the troubled times of Emergency and published it in 1977 which earned him kudos from Gandhians and intellectuals opposed to tyranny.

DIRECTOR OF PLAYS

As a director, Dr. Vasudevan Pillai took the cudgels of direction in his hands for about forty plays under different theatre troupes.

A random look at the important plays he directed, would show the following titles:

• Kuchela Gatha and a few other plays written by the playwright himself.
• Rising of the Moon by Lady Gregory
• Khatolghacha by Bhasa.
• The Well of the Saints by J M Synge.
• Macbeth of Shakespeare
• Oedipus of Sophocles.
• Bharathavakyam (The Last Word) by G. Shankara Pillai.
• Poojamuri (The room for worship)  by G. Shankara Pillai.
• Mrugathrushna   by Tagore.
• Muktadhara by Tagore.
• Vellappokkam (The Flood) by K.T. Mohammad.
• Kanchanaseeta by C.N. Sreekantan Nair.
• Daivathar by Kavalam.
• The Wild Duck by Ibson.
• Samathva Vadi (The Socialist) by Pulimana Parameshwaran Pillai.

Kuchela Gatha, among these, was selected to represent India at the Asian Theatre Festival in South Korea in 2001. Most of the plays directed by Vayala came to receive critical acclaim in the hands of professional theater aficionados, in India and abroad.

Six plays were translated into Malayalam for theatrical presentation by Pillai.  One  French play ;  Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi, 3 English plays ; Edward Bond’s The Bundle, Samuel Beckett’s Kraps Last Tape, J M Synge’s The Well of the Saints,  one from Italian; Eugo Betti’s  His Last Moments and one from Kannada ; Girish Karnad’s Naga Mandala.  These plays were all produced and shown before different audiences comprising of students, teachers, professionals and the general viewers.