Manel comes on stage

Now that she was married, my brand new wife, Manel was at last free to go on stage. As a first step I took her with me for the very next rehearsal of Janelaya. Needless to say I was very proud to show her off - this slim, attractive, shapely lass with the winning smile.

I tried to behave as normal as possible and that getting married was just a small event in my busy 'artistic' schedule! I introduced her to the new cast and as usual sat in the middle of the hall, with Manel seated beside me.

Perhaps this was her first taste of a regular rehearsal apart from her experiences in school as a child actress and her activities as a teacher of Bharata Natyam in convent schools at Kegalle, Kurunegala and Galle much later, as an adult.

By this time she had given up her job as a teacher and was employed as a secretary in the private sector. By now she knew most of my actors by name and she had even met some of them briefly.

We were rehearsing Act 3 of the play that evening. There is a scene in Act 3 where Aakaasa who had left the boarding to get married, comes back to the boarding in search of his old friends, as a disillusioned man. "You went away to get married, to be happy.

Why have you come back?" That's a line that 'Director' aims sarcastically at the disillusioned Aakaasa. Young M.B. Jayasinghe who played the role of 'Director' was a mischievous fellow. He kept repeating the question looking in our direction while the other actors in the scene were trying their best to hide their mirth. 'We thought you had come here to show off!" He kept repeating that line too.

"You are quite right M.B. !" I rejoined from the hall. "I have brought my new 'Manamali' here to show off to a set of terrible actors!" I added and called the break for tea. The actors on stage including M.B. Jayasinghe disappeared into the wings. I looked at Manel.

She was beaming and enjoying the drama thoroughly. My friend Piyasena Gunatilleke soon appeared on stage with a cake followed by two others carrying a small table. Two others came in with a nice clean table cloth and covered the table. Piyasena G. placed the cake on the table most ceremoniously.

Plates of short eats, sheaves of kolikuttu also appeared on the table and the whole cast gathered on the stage to sing "Mangalam' to us. We too joined their applause and came up to the stage to be hugged by them. My good friend Piyasena Gunatilleke could hardly close down his broad smile.

All of us enjoyed the special treat after which a little speech was made by M.B. Jayasinghe in which he promised that most of them will soon follow my example. In my return speech I told them there was no hurry to do so and that I was not prepared to give them 'wedding leave' until the production of the play was over.

Auspicious note

And so my Manel entered the stage on a very auspicious note and never looked back for forty long years. Before I forget I must include a little 'official' incident that happened to me on the eve of our wedding. I did mention earlier that I sold my old Triumph Mayflower in order to meet some of my wedding expenses. Before I resorted to that last desperate move, I tried to get a loan from my office.

There were no 'Wedding Loans' as such at that time. But there was provision for what was called a 'Distress Loan'. I applied for one giving the reason as 'Wedding Expenses'. My Chief Clerk, that irrepressible Sivasitahmbaram Pillai called me to his table. "So Jayasena, you are going to get married, hah?" "Yes, Sir, I am going to get married." I told him looking down appropriately, making full use of the 'actor' in me.

"Congratulations Jayasena. It's high time you did that. With all this play acting and all that, you could easily fall into the wrong hands, you know..." Mr. S. paused for effect and I let him have it in full measure. "And, you want a loan?" "That's right Sir, I want a loan." "But, you see Jayasena, Marriage is not a 'distress' as far as the A.R. (Administrative Regulations) and F.R. (Financial Regulations) are concerned...In fact I would call it a blessing....!" I had not thought of it in the A.R. and F.R. manner.

I was getting married and since I did not have any savings, I needed money for a suit of clothes, a wedding ring for the bride etc. etc. and that was distressing enough.

However sweetly Mr. S. spoke, the granting of a distress loan for the cause of marriage was ruled out. He was very apologetic of course, but stuck to his A.R. and F.R. guns. "You bring me the girl's horoscope Jayasena, and I will make a reading for you, free of charge.

I am sure she is a lucky girl who will bring a lot of luck on you...Let me see your palm..." said Mr. S. and grabbed my right hand. He peered into my palm for a couple of minutes over his gold rims, hemmed and hawed and cleared his throat. "You don't need distress loans Jayasena, you are destined to marry a very lucky girl who will bring you a lot of luck, goodness and fame.

According to your palm, she should have the skin colour of a tender mango leaf....!" Concluded Mr. Sivasithambaram Pillai. With his comments ringing in my ears I walked away happy, and forgot about the distress loan!

Stage experience

The second production of Janelaya with the Lanka Mahajana Kala Mandalaya, was brought on stage on the 29th of April, 1962 - just a month before I entered wedlock. The cast this time was more mature and some of them had some stage experience.

All of them could handle their songs well. We had 'undeclared' support from the LSSP and declared support from stalwarts such as Senator Reggie Perera and Senator Chandra Gunasekera. Shelton Silva as Aakaasa played with confidence and he moved very gracefully on the stage. We did not have to wait for 20 years. Janelaya was already taking root, but very slowly.

At the beginning, there were days we had hardly fifty in the audience, but we carried on. I told my cast that numbers did not matter. "If you give your best, even if there are only two in the audience, that will take effect. Imagine that there are five hundred out there and give your very best..." I told them - youthful, determined, dedicated. And they listened and obeyed. We gathered the fruits slowly, but when they came they were very sweet indeed.

Shelton Silva got a job in the outstations, under the new Paddy Marketing Board and he had to be replaced by a new Mr. Aakaasa. I invited young Upali Attanayake to fill the void and he gladly agreed. In fact he had been a Janelaya fan from the very first day he saw it.

he was being called to play Prince Maname too, he told me later. But he preferred to play Mr. Aakaasa. I bow my head to the late Upali Attanayake in admiration of that decision. He played the part to the hilt and enjoyed doing so. He was the best 'Aakaasa' I ever had. And I am sure he would remain the best Aakaasa that our audiences ever had.

Upali brought into the role a versatility and vitality that would be very difficult to match. I have played the role too on and off but I could never match his unerring performance.

New avenues

The message of Janelaya - I mean the theatrical message sank in slowly. Men and women of the theatre and theatre enthusiasts too began to realize slowly that there could be new avenues, new approaches, to the local theatre. The 'Manamaniacs' were slowly beginning to come out of their 'stylized haze.

We performed Janelaya at one of the State Drama Festivals during that time as an 'invited' play and the chief guest was Dr. N.M. Perera. I think he was Minister of Finance at the time. He came back stage after the performance to congratulate us.

'I say Jayasena, you had me worried at the beginning." He told me. "I was beginning to think that all is pessimism in your play. I was worried that happiness was so elusive to so many. That was until the last scene, where your heroine puts some sense into that fellow Aakaasa's head ! I was so relieved at that it!" And N.M. laughed that distinctly infectious N.M. smile!

Manel came on stage briefly as Gaayani Padipela whenever Nimala Balasuriya, the regular player was not available. At this time I was already working on Kuveni. The theme of Kuveni, or rather the inconsolable fate of this woman called Kuveni had been haunting me from the very first day I had listened to the 'Kuveni Asna' being recited by one of my elder brothers, Dhamraratne Aiya.

It is a doleful dirge written by some unknown poet a long long time ago. I must have been a six or seven years old at that time.

It relates the entire story of Kuveni and her meeting with the marauding bandit Vijaya, who had been expelled from his country by his father Sinhabahu, and relates in detail all the sacrifices this woman had made for the sake of her lover, in beautiful homespun verse.

My brother Dharmaratne recited it with feeling in a movingly melancholy rhythm. I would stand stupefied and listen to him.

Charms

One of the lines in this dirge, stuck like a throttled tear in my throat. We had been made to believe that Kuveni was a 'Yakkhani', that she had all kinds of charms, witchcraft and that she could take many forms including one of a tigress. She, in her human form was said to have three breasts'.

In the folk poem the sympathetic poet asks the vital question - When I saved you from the shipwreck, when I saved you from death, when I appeased your hunger, when I made a palace for you and slept in the same bed with you and when I appeased your lust with my womanhood, did not you then realize I was a yakkhani ?" And this line - "Did not you then realize I was a 'Yakkhani" is repeated most effectively by that unknown poet of yore, that it stuck in my child-mind like a painful sting.

Kuveni lived in my mind for many years and in adulthood I began to see many 'Kuvenis' in our own world. Women abandoned by men. Women discarded. Women with children hanging on to them, begging in the streets, in trains, in buses, seeking justice, a kindly eye.

I saw 'Kuvenis' under lamp posts in the city, in the twilight, impatiently waiting for a victim. I saw Kuveni as the 'Eternal Woman'.

And I wanted to bring that woman on stage. I wanted to bring some sort of justice on this woefully maligned woman.

I wanted to present her case in a court of law of our 'enlightened' times. I wanted to rectify an unjust and one-sided history.

I was mature enough now. I could handle her story. Most importantly, I had my own Kuveni in my home. Not as a Yakkhani, but as a soft, proud and beautiful woman. She would play my 'Kuveni. And I was totally sure, abundantly sure that she, My 'Kuveni' would take the country by storm!

Thought of the week

Another New Year has just dawned. In the recent past we have awaited with bated breath, the dawn of so many New Years and hoped and hoped that each New Year would bring in that elusive peace and sanity into our lives.

Alas, that peace and our collective hopes seem to get further and further away from us.

Who is responsible?. Surely not the peace loving majority of this country. One would have thought that the tsunami taught an unforgettable lesson to those who craved for more land, more sea, more sky and more blood. Obviously it has not.

Foolish men will go on, on their errant foolish paths till the dust and ashes of time will claim them and cover them for ever and their foolish egos will not prevail even in the thin air...

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