'First Rising' reaches the small screen

Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation has given approval to the screenplay based on the controversial novel 'First Rising' by Somachandre Wijesuriya. The novel is about the background to the first armed uprising of JVP in 1971 and was a nominee at the Gratiaen Awards in 1988. Professor Thiru Kandiah commenting on the novel said that 'First Rising' portrays the betrayals in the post-colonial era that led to an impasse and these are the kind of writings that meets the needs of the day.

Among the reviewers who highly commended the novel was Aravinda of Daily News who wrote that it is a final touching salute to the 1960s, the last days of an expiring age of innocence.

National Library and Documentation Board refused a grant for publication assistance in 2001 and informed the writer that First Rising does not qualify in view of the controversial matter relating to the story. Critics disagreed.

Professor Sunanda Mahendra commenting on Daily News observed that he discerns a 'cultural police' looking at the creative writer curbing some of the thought streams and social experiences preventing him being shared by the fellow partners in the society. Columnist Aravinda of DN said 'It surely betrays a touching naivete on the part of authorities to assume that a work of fiction could be entirely divorced from politics for which 'controversial' appears to be an euphemism'.

The screenplay approved by Rupavahini is linked to a new scheme where a panel of independent reviewers read the script and approve it for production.

The reviewers have commented that a TV production based on the screenplay will have a tremendous impact on the youth of today who are unaware of the reasons for the 1971 armed uprising against the State. The screenplay written by author himself met the approval of ITN and Swarnavahini channels too. The teledrama will be televised as 'Yugandaraya' (Story of an era).

The story of 'First Rising' is about the decay and collapse of a fictional middle class family in Kegalle district, which lived in the post 1956 era. The son of the teacher family finally marches to join the rebels, as there was no mechanism to resolve his long unemployment after graduation. The novel intensively examines the socio-political reasons for the 1971 uprising on a broad format of postcolonial history.

The teledrama will be directed by the writer himself who is currently assembling the crew and searching for locations. Mawanella, Aranayake and Rattota are identified places.

The production is to commence in June and the teleplay will be ready for telecasting in the latter part of the year. Sanath Darmaratna formerly of the Government Film Unit is co-coordinating the production.

Rudolf Nureyev (17-03-1938 -- 09-01-1993) :
The eternal legend that lives forever
 

The World of Arts by Gwen Herat

Time like memories, often repeat itself. A legend like Rudolf Nureyev slips into dream-like trance and surface from the rich tapestry of life, destined to remain with us forever. But in the case of history very few are brought into play with interruption of time only to fade away.

'Full many a glorious morning have I seen;
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye.
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy'
William Shakespeare (Sonnet XXX111)

Nureyev was beset with problems from the very start of his career but rose to be the greatest dancer and outstanding choreographer of the last century. He was a man sentenced by fate to live the most incredible destinies; a man who was as a youth condemned to complete oblivion in the country he was born and hunted by the KBG for years, in the West after his defection.

Russia erased his memory forever until thirty years later, when he was accepted as their son of the soil. But it was too late. Nureyev had only a couple of years to live but he was determined to show his countrymen the stuff he was made of. When he danced in LA Sylphede, the audience did not know him.

They were not born when he had defected thirty years ago and the fire and passion in his dance were absent. It was the country he lived, loved and lost. The moment he defected in the West, he was inevitably canonized. He was an easy subject for the paparazzi because of his extraordinary good looks and spectacular dancing that the west had never seen in a male. He had the best of Russian ballet with him and processed it with the best in the West and the results were heavenly. He awed the choreographers of the day, Frederick Ashton, Jerome Robbins, Martha Graham, Twyla Tharp, Roland Petit, Maurice Bejart created ballets exclusively for him. Apart from them, he created his own ballets such as Cinderella, Romeo and Juliet.

The leading ballerinas of the day clamoured for his partnership and Margot Fonteyn who was on the verge of giving up dancing, found youthful exuberance injected to her and together they became the rage of ballet. Fonteyn was twenty years older than Nureyev but age was no bar. When she was 56, she danced the 14-year old Juliet opposite Nureyev who was barely thirty six. Nureyev had converted the stone-looking Fonteyn into a creature of passion and fire the English audience had never seen before in her.

At the beginning of his stupendous career, he first appeared on stage at the Leningrad Ballet School as an early teenager. He was simply known as Rudik then, a talented but hot-tempered, provocative nonetheless devoted beginner of this great and passionate art. He was interested in everything and full of life. Once he began, there was no stopping to whatever he had opted for. A great ear for music, his musiciality was so great he could pick up notes from the sound of waves, crashing of water or in the swift of the sweeping breeze.

Nureyev had an obsession with dance. He lived by it and for it. He was very passionate, like a physical hunger. Anything about dancing was his priority and anything that was not dancing, he cared less. Politics had a critical effect on him but he never had a political thought throughout his life. He was crazy for dancing from the time he was young but he was from a poor family in a very distant province in the Urals.

He was seventeen when he got to Leningrad but with loads of talent and experience from his province in folk dancing etc. He was desperate to catch up and like a tank, one could not stop him. Every night either he was at the ballet or philharmonic. During the day he would dance, long after other students have stopped. By now he had developed a sexual ambiguity. This was the first step to exoticism he was to build in the West. He paid very little attention to such trivial things.

Before class when everyone was warming up, he would perform the ballerina's version from the first act of a ballet. People just stood amazed looking at him. He was one of the first dancers from Russia to go on stage in only tights and dance belt. To Nureyev, his body was an attribute of his technique. He wanted to show it. So, in the seventies, he became the sex symbol in Europe and was dubbed as 'the most beautiful man in the world', a tag he carried for many years. His personal impact was so great that Nureyev mania swept across the West. young people aped him, his looks and the way his sensational smile broke into wide laughter. They adored his long eye lashes and above all, his impecable athletic physique.

The ambiguity in his body was solid, sturdy but supple. He stretched his body out, elongated the line and stood in a high, a very high half-point and next pulled everything up, up and out. He made himself into a long elegant design with lots of part, beautifully arranged but all the time, he was very masculine, very male with a touch of earth.

So, the dancers in the West as well as in Russia started to imitate him and he became the role model for the young aspiring dancers. He had also placed the male dancer centre-stage, a position thus far enjoyed only by the ballerina. The audience had a different perspect of him and started looking at him and not so much at the prima donna. This may have angered the ballerinas but they got used to this new concept.

He was a legend during his lifetime and an icon whose vision was expansive. Never was there a person less petty. As he got older, he never cut back on his steps but made them harder. When he got into his forties and fifties, he did like other older dancers such as Serge Lifar or Konstantine Sergeyev and tailored the choreography to fit him. At his age he could have done just one double Assemble and two Pirouttes and rested for the rest on his grace, dignity, intellect and magnetism of which he had loads. People would still fall out of balconies for joy.

There was never a dancer like him and never would be.
'Farewell; thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate.
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determine
But how do I hold thee but by thy granting?...
William Shakespeare
(Sonnet LXXXVII)

Book Review :

Carefully crafted portrait of a family

A Gaggle Of Aunts (Stories of my childhood)
Author: Srini Peries
Printed by: Wasala Publications Nugegoda
Available at: Vijitha Yapa Bookshops and Barefoot

I discovered that it is perfectly possible to judge a book by its cover when I picked up a copy of 'A Gaggle of Aunts' by Srini Peries. A quick glance at the sub-title 'Stories of My Childhood' and a cursory peek at the collage of photographs told me that the subject matter at least of this slender volume would be very close to my heart.

I have reached that stage in life when I am actually aware of the importance of one's heritage, past and culture and collect books that help fill out the hazy mind's eye, pictures I have of my wonderful early years in Ceylon when my homeland was known by that name.

'A Gaggle of Aunts' does that and much more. It is a wonderfully observed, carefully crafted portrait of a family and the ins and outs of their daily lives before the winds of change shattered the foundations of this social milieu, which was unique in its time and place.

In the author's note, Srini Peries says: "When I set out to write these stories my idea was to provide a pen portrait of many folks now mostly passed away, on whose lives were interwoven with mine. I wished to portray a social snapshot of the 1940s and 1950s when I was growing up."

She achieves this very ingeniously by a collection of vignettes and asides skilfully collated into seven chapters with uncomplicated, self-explanatory headings. It kicks off with 'A Gaggle of Aunts' and ends with 'My Wedding'. In between is a chapter headed 'An English Boarding School' which is an inspired inclusion as it gives an insight into the rigors and pleasures of English convent school life.

'Travels with My Mother' is another chapter packed with interesting details of going on holiday when even short car journeys were major expeditions, before hotels dotted the countryside and package tourists descended an masse.

The author recalls with absolute clarity what life was really like for young girls of her background half a century ago. Simultaneously she has brought many of her family members uncannily to life so that we become familiar with their views, habits and eccentricities and get an idea of the social customs of times in this privileged section of Ceylonese society that was a quaint but unique blend of East and West.

Reading it, I was so overcome with deja vu that I began to wonder about the author. Although I share her surname spelled in the same way, I have no relations who do so. In the second chapter the conundrum was solved.

I realized that the author is the daughter of one of my mother's numerous cousins. No wonder so many of the people and places in the book rang bells in my head! I last remember seeing the author when I attended her wedding as an eight-year-old in one of those frilly party dresses that she loathed so much. Her mother who I called Auntie Renee was someone I was very fond of and kept in touch with until she passed away.

I was a frequent visitor to both the houses mentioned in the book but my memories of them are sketchy. That's why I wish the author had given us more detailed descriptions of her childhood homes because they were outstanding examples of grand houses of that lost era. That is my only criticism.

Apart from this, 'A Gaggle of Aunts' is a carefully crafted, candid autobiography written in a succinct style that will give older readers, particularly of our clan, a glimpse of their own past and the young an idea of what things were really like a few decades ago. I am truly glad that I picked up the book on the strength of its cover.

- Milika Peries Hariani

'The Leading Man' at the Wendt after 10 years

Indu Dharmasena wrote and produced 'The Leading Man' in 1995.

Ten years later this comedy about a popular movie actor is scheduled to go on the boards at the Lionel Wendt on March 18, 19 and 20 at 7.15 pm.

The movie world brings romance, excitement and glamour to people in an otherwise mundane world. All over the world, fans idolize and worship movie stars. But is it all glamour and tinsel?

The silver screen heart throb, Premkumar is at the peak of his career with movie producers, directors clamouring to sign him up as all his movies are box office hits. His romance with the beautiful up and coming actress Geethani, is heading towards marriage. Premkumar, thought nothing could go wrong for him! until he is forced to face reality. As one lie leads to another, his loyal and efficient secretary, michelle, has to save him from many awkward and hilarious situations. The vain and self centered Premkumar discovers that the whole world is a stage, and that he is not the only player in it.

What is the secret Premkumar is desperately trying to hide so he can maintain his image as a young actor? Is Geethani really in love with him or just using him? Who are the two young girls living at his house? Why would an award winning movie director like Steven Senaratne go to any length to persuade a commercial actor like Premkumar to act in his latest masterpiece? What makes an aspiring young writer like Sanjay Kaludeniya ask Premkumar to play the lead in his maiden venture? Does everyone have hidden agendas? See "The Leading Man" to find out the answers.

Premkumar is played by Indu Dharmasena. The beautiful starlet is played by Michelle Herft. The two young girls, Ruwanthi and Nuwanthi are played by Sanjula Amarasekara and Seshandri de Silva. The no nonsense Secretary Michelle is played by Sanjana Selvarajah. Steven Senaratne is played by Rajitha Mendis and Sanjay is played by young Gehan Cooray. Rashmi Fernando plays a journalist while Sanwada Abeysirigunawardena plays Krystal de Silva, a prospective film producer. Durga Pulendran plays the role of Kala, Premkumar's dance instructor and choreographer.

All in all this play promises light entertainment for the whole family. Profits from this play presented in association with TNL Radio Network will be utilised for tsunami rehabilitation.