N N Pillai's Plays Published

DC Books, one of the top ten book publishers in India, released N.N. Pillayude Natakangal (N.N. Pillai's Plays), a collection of legendary playwright-actor-director late N.N. Pillai's plays, on Thursday in Kochi. A web site on N.N. Pillai, www.nnpillai.com was also launched during the function which was attended by actor Sreenivasan, actor-director Renjith, script-writer P. Balachandran, poet Balachandran Chullikad and N.N. Pillai's son actor Vijayaraghavan.

Addressing the function, Balachandran Chullikad called the late playwright-actor-director N.N. Pillai a whiplash on the back of Kerala society. "His plays struck a severe blow to Malayalee hypocrisy. His play, Kapalika, for instance, left the spectators feel exposed. Drama itself was meant to be a discourse on humanity during those times and they had profound impact on the society. However, symbolic plays and those that mimicked the indigenous theatre propounded by Kavalam Narayana Panicker alienated people from theatre," he added.

N.N. Pillai (1918-1995) had written over 30 plays, 23 one-act plays, 2 theoretical studies on theatre and an autobiography. His popular plays are Kapalika, Prethalokam, Gorilla, Folydol, Kanakku Chembakaraman, Easwaran Arastil, etc. He launched Viswa Kerala Kala Samithi drama troupe in 1951which was active till 2005, even after his death in 1995. His films, Godfather and Nadody, were both huge blockbusters in the state. (Godfather was later remade in Telugu and Tamil.)