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| Saturday, 16 October 2004 |
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'Turtles Will Never Fly' : Towards ethnic and social amity through theatre
To Sunethra Bandaranaike, the cool suave eldest scion of Sri Lanka's foremost dynastic family, the obligation to impact significantly on the people her family has ruled over for a long, came as a birthright. At first blush, Oxford-educated Sunethra gives the impression of an ethereal being born to live and move in a rarefied wonderland inhabited only by people in what the WHO calls 'a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being'. However, having recently seen the operatic drama called 'Turtles Will Never Fly', at Bishop's College Auditorium, it seemed to me that the world Sunethra has freely chosen to hobnob with, is the world of the physically and mentally disabled, socially marginalised, economically underprivileged, politically traumatised, internally displaced and otherwise largely expendable, hoi polloi. I doubt whether any of them is a registered voter. In any case, Sunethra doesn't crave anybody's preferential vote. The young people she had brought together had come from the North and South, East and West, and the Central Hills. They had manifestly taken to the theatre like ducks to water. At the end of the show, the cast of some 27 players, answering to names such as Maldeniya, Sivanayagam, and Shahabdeen, took to Sunethra like iron filings to a magnet. For all their ethnic and cultural diversity, they interacted spontaneously on stage with one another. The sheer integration was wonderful to behold. One caught a glimpse of the intrinsic oneness of the human family. It reinforced my passionate belief that peace can, and will come to our bleeding country. Miracle To a medically trained eye, the degrees of physical and mental disability evident in many of the players made the dramatic prowess they displayed almost unbelievable. It proved that a biological disability need not be a social handicap. The abolition of social handicaps imposed by biological disabilities is miraculous and that is precisely what transpired on the stage when 'Turtles Will Never Fly' was enacted. The miracle had been engineered by Sunethra Bandaranaike, the founder, philosopher, guide and power behind the Sunera Foundation. The declared aim of the Foundation is the integration of the socially marginalised talented young people in our country through the arts. Its proclaimed rallying cry is: "Where there is art, there is hope." Prime movers The experience of watching 'Turtles Will Never Fly' unfold on stage was so exhilarating that I was curious to discover how the miracle had been wrought. Here goes. Having defined the vision and mission of the Sunera Foundation and generated the considerable amount of resources required, the first step had been to bring together, three inspired and inspiring people: Wolfgang Stange, Rohana Deva and Ramani Damayanthi. Stange is a specialist with an international reputation in teaching creative dance and self-expression to people who are physically and mentally disadvantaged. Radio journalist and well-known puppeteer Rohana Deva has experience in working with physically, mentally and socially disadvantaged young people in our country. Award-winning actress Ramani Damayanthi collaborates with Stange with Rohana Deva. They are all associated with the Butterflies Theatre Company. They have been working together for many years. Creation In the run up to 'Turtles Will Never Fly', they had conducted five theatre workshops in different parts of the country outside the metropolis and had picked promising participants from each area. Other players had been drawn from among participants of Sunera Foundation's Colombo workshop. Some young soldiers disabled in our ethnic conflict, had been invited to join them. These diverse groups, united with their fellows by the tie of a disability imposed on them by a cruel fate, had been brought together to form a temporary resident community. They - some of them on wheelchairs - had been made to interact with one another according to a script under the gentle, patient, artistic guidance of Stange, Rohana Deva and Ramani. It probes the themes of real life common to the disabled and the non-disabled. The meaning of existence. The definition of madness. The nature of love. The games politicians play. The suckers that voters are. The insights come episodically like beams of moonlight or occasionally like sharp rays of sunlight. The music had been composed and conducted by a rapidly rising star in our musical firmament: Navaratne Gamage. What gradually emerged from this collective endeavour was the thing of beauty called 'Turtles Will Never Fly'. Disconnect Of Sunera Foundation's stage productions, I have vivid memories of the ones titled 'Butterflies Will Always Fly' and 'Flowers Will Always Bloom'. These titles, expressing as they do, highly uninteresting truths, at least have the merit of being formulated in positive terms. So I cannot quite figure out why the latest production of the Sunera Foundation should have taken the form of an uninspiring negative banality: 'Turtles Will Never Fly'. For me, there seemed to be a disconnect between the title and the contents of the drama. Many turtles on stage that day jumped for joy and soared into the air. In my mind's eye, they seemed to fly straight into the heart of Sunethra seated in the middle of the front row. And, no doubt because 'Butterflies Will Always Fly', she responded by flying to the stage at the end of the drama. The turtles hugged her and kissed her and pressed her to their bosoms. Rarely have I seen a straightforward Bandaranaike so adoringly mobbed. Sunethra Bandaranaike surely must be a leader of the kind Lao Tse described in 565 BC: A leader is best - Carlo Fonseka |
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