'Children of the sea'

Lakmini RODRIGO

COLOMBO: 'Children Of The Sea' (COTS) - a drama produced by the award winning directors Toby Gough and Hana Al Hadad featuring children affected by various disasters including the tsumani devastation will be performed at Viharamahadevi Park on April 23 at 7.00 p.m., Hana Al Hadad told the 'Daily News'.

COTS is an internationally acclaimed drama based on Shakespeare's 'Pericles-Prince of Tyre'. It had won four highly regarded awards at the Edinburgh Festival in August 2005 including the 'Scotsman First Award' and the 'Jack Tinker Spirit of the Fringe award'.

It is an overwhelming story of a king, who had lost all his worldly belongings including his wife and daughter and wanders around the world in search of his daughter Marina whose name means 'Child of the sea'.

COTS is a captivating performance with a touching story underneath, enriched by many enchanting dances performed by the children.

The play is the combined effort of many local and international artists to bring back some hope for the people affected by the tsumani that struck Sri Lanka in 2004.

Most of the cast are tsunami affected children who had been mentally depressed after the tsunami devastation and COTS has been able to give them a whole new life and new hope to go on, Hana said.

The children, out of which some had no previous experience in preforming arts have been trained by international artists including Bollywood dance directors are now able to perform beautifully.

The drama has been going round the country, visiting many tsunami camps and performing for them, she added.

"The drama was able to bring back hope and a new aspiration to those suffering souls. We saw what a great positive effect it made on those people who had nothing to look forward to after their whole world had been robbed from them by the tsunami," Hana added.