A study of the lives of popular theater artists, Stigmas of the Tamil Stage is the first in-depth analysis of Special Drama, a genre of performance unique to the southernmost Indian state of Tamilnadu. Held in towns and villages throughout the region, Special Drama performances last from 10 p.m. until dawn. There are no theatrical troupes in Special Drama; individual artists are contracted “specially” for each event. The first two hours of each performance are filled with the kind of bawdy, improvisational comedy that is the primary focus of this study; the remaining hours present more markedly staid dramatic treatments of myth and history. Special Drama artists themselves are of all ages, castes, and ethnic and religious affiliations; the one common denominator in their lives is their lower-class status. Artists regularly speak of how poverty compelled their entrance into the field.
Special Drama is looked down upon by the middle- and upper-classes as too popular, too vulgar, and too “mixed.” The artists are stigmatized: people insult them in public and landlords refuse to rent to them. Stigma falls most heavily, however, on actresses, who are marked as “public women” by their participation in Special Drama. As Susan Seizer’s sensitive study shows, one of the primary ways the performers deal with such stigma is through humor and linguistic play. Their comedic performances in particular directly address questions of class, culture, and gender deviations—the very issues that so stigmatize them. Seizer draws on extensive interviews with performers, sponsors, audience members, and drama agents as well as on careful readings of live Special Drama performances in considering the complexities of performers’ lives both on stage and off.
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Notes on Transliteration
- Introduction
- Preface: A Conversation on Culture
- Birth of This Project
- Writing about Special Drama
- Methods
- Geographic Relations and the Historical Ethnographic Present
- Why Comedy Is a Good Site for the Study of Culture
- What Is Special Drama?
- Making a Living
- What Is Special about Special Drama?
- Naming Matters
- ‘‘Hey Drama People!’’: Stigma at Work
- ‘‘Actors Have No Murai’’: A Proverbial Lack
- Part One: The History and Organization of Special Drama
- Part Two: Comedy
- Part Three: Lives
- Part One: The History and Organization
of Special Drama
- 1. Legacies of Discourse: Special Drama and Its History
- The Legend and Legacy of Sankaradas Swamigal
- The History of Special Drama
- Tamil Drama History, Stage One (of Undatable Roots)
- Tamil Drama History, Stage Two
- Tamil Drama History, Stage Three
- Tamil Drama History, Stage Four
- The Disciplined Life of the Drama Company
- Life on the Margins of the Companies
- Tamil Drama History, Stage Five: A New Historical Trajectory
- The Legacy of the Company Model in Special Drama
- Discourse of Vulgarity, Legacy of Shame
- Context: The History of Modernity in Tamilnadu
- Drama Actors Sangams
- Why Actors Stand Still: Onstage Movement as the Embodiment of Vulgarity
- The Stage Today
- From Urban to Rurban
- 2. Prestige Hierarchies in Two and Three Dimensions: Drama Noticesand the Organization of Special Drama
- Early Drama Notices, 1891–1926
- The Photograph Enters Notices, 1926–1936
- English in the Vocabulary of Special Drama Artists: Jansirani and Sivakami
- Midcentury Notices and Artists, 1942–1964 (M. K. Kamalam)
- The Current Form of Notices: Roles and Ranks
- The Photographic Style of Contemporary Notices
- The Prestige Hierarchies of Artists as Pictured on Drama Notices
- The Iconicity of the Contemporary Notice: Structured Spaces and Places
- Printers and the Circulation of the Contemporary Drama Notice
- Drama Sponsorship and the Written Text of the Contemporary Drama Notice
- The Working Network That Makes Special Drama Work
- The Ritual Calendar of Drama Sponsorship
- The Grounds of a Social Economy
- 3. Discipline in Practice: The Actors Sangam
- Sivakami Winks
- . . . and Jansirani Disapproves
- Competing Claims: A Matter of Bearing
- Internalized Historiography: Artists’ Discourses
- Controlling Bodies and the Control of the Body
- Discipline in Practice
- Cross-Roles: Marked Men and Funny Women
- Multiple Strategies
- PART TWO Comedy
- 4. The Buffoon’s Comedy: Jokes, Gender, and Discursive Distance
- The Distances Appropriate to Humor
- The Buffoon’s Comedy Scene
- Modernity and Its States of Desire
- Layers of Meaning and the Meaning of Layers
- The Ambivalence of Laughter: A Final Consideration
- 5. The Buffoon-Dance Duet: Social Space and Gendered Place
- Mise-en-Scène
- The Five Use-Areas and the Five Story Elements of the Duet
- Architecture of the Stage: Inside, Outside, Behind, Above, and Beyond
- Configuring the Stage: The Duet in Performance
- The Dancer’s Entrance
- The Bumpy Meeting
- The Meaning of a Bump between Men and Women
- The Contest between Men and Women
- Mutual Admiration and ‘‘Love Marriage’’
- Analogic Relations Onstage and Off
- Conclusion
- Coda
- 6. The Atipiti Scene: Laughing at Domestic Violence
- Atipiti
- Anthropologists Viewing Laughter
- The Ritual Frame of the Atipiti Scene
- The Atipiti Scene
- Act I: The Wife
- Act II: The Husband
- Act III: Their Meeting
- A Discussion with the Artists
- Four Theories of Spectatorship
- Why Does the Audience Laugh?
- An Audience Account
- 7. The Drama Tongue and the Local Eye
- A Secret Language
- Language Matters
- Situating the Drama Tongue as an Argot
- Researching the Drama Tongue
- Terms of the Drama Tongue
- People of the Drama Tongue
- What Do We Expect of a Secret Language?
- Centered in Mobility, or, An Insider Language That Isn’t
- 8. The Roadwork of Actresses
- Offstage with Actresses
- Narrative One: Regarding the Gender Dimensions of Bookinga Drama
- Work and the Internalization of Gendered Behavior
- Narrative Two: Regarding Traveling to a Drama in a Private Conveyance
- Roads and the Externalization of Gendered Behavior
- Narrative Three: Regarding Traveling to a Drama in a Public Conveyance
- The Actress’s Strategy of Imitating the Good Woman
- Narrative Four: Regarding Spatial Arrangements at a Drama Site
- Theoretical Grounds
- Narrative Five: Regarding Traveling Home in the Morning
- Conclusion
- 9. Kinship Murai and the Stigma on Actors
- An Excess Born of Lack
- Kinship, Incest, and the Onstage Locus of Stigma
- Two Strategies Artists Use to Counter Kin-Related Stigma
- Known and Unknown People
- Prestigious Patrilines and Activist Actresses
- N. S. Varatarajan’s Family
- Karūr Ambika’s Family
- Many Murai
- Epilogue
- Flower Garlands
- Jansirani and Sivakami, 2001
- Stigma and Its Sisters
- Appendix 1: Sangam Rules
- Appendix 2: Tamil Transliteration of Buffoon Selvam’s Monologue,1 April 1992
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
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