Aftermath of the rebellion

THEATRE: I did spend that whole night and draft an appeal for the insurgents to give up arms, give up their rebellion and join the mainstream of politics. I started with a well known folk poem - ‘Maga hondata thiyenam - Yanna deasath penenam - Kima bediwala yanne - Manmulavu ayeku se...’ [If the road is clear, If the eyes could see, Why traverse jungle paths, Like someone who has lost the way.]

I was certainly no expert on insurgency or rebellion. I was just another ordinary citizen - minding his own business. I was of course aware of the youth unrest in the country and some of their causes such as unemployment, inequality and non-concern.

But when Mr. Subasinghe asked me to make an appeal, I went along with it as best as I could and as best as I understood the problem. I don’t know whether my appeal was used.

They may have used parts of it. Anyway leaflets containing an appeal for the insurgents to give up were distributed throughout the country. Some were even air dropped to their jungle hide-outs.

I will leave it to the historians and the sociologists to delve deep into the very occurrence itself. In fact much HAS been written about it by historians, sociologists and even novelists.

Some of the insurgents themselves have written about it. Some of them who escaped the wrath of the Govt. at that time are frontline politicians today. Some have become top order journalists and yet others have just become wise old ordinary citizens.

Some of us were caught in the very middle of the insurrection. My group was to perform ‘Apata Puthe’ at Veyangoda Central on April 6. The show was organized by my younger sister, Soma, from Wathupitiwela. It never took place even subsequently. Poor girl she even had pawned her jewellery to meet the expenses.

Many stage plays and other shows of entertainment were cancelled. Although the rebellion was snuffed out soon enough its ashes and smoke prevailed for a long time and it lay like a cloud of fear over the country. The country came into a halt as it were.

On horse back

One heard of all kinds of stories. It seems that at a certain place where the rebels had held sway for a few days, that the leader had come on horseback to declare their victory. Perhaps the horse was taken from the Police stables. Titus Thotawatte, my good friend told me a very moving story.

In the Kegalle district, two young men had joined the rebels and were missing from home for a long time. It appears that the younger one, who was very fond of his mother, would appear from somewhere at the dead of the night for a meal and make a quick exit. But the elder one never appeared.

At the height of the insurrection both of them appeared one night and that was to demand the double-barrelled gun which was a prized piece of property belonging to the father. The mother pleaded with them to have a meal. “I don’t need any meals from you. I want the gun!” thundered the elder one, to his father.

The father had replied very calmly, “Of course you can have it. Whatever is mine belongs to the two of you. Then he brought out the loaded gun and as the sons reached for it shot both of them dead.

“I did not bring you up to kill others. If you must die, let it be from my hands!” The father is supposed to have said after shooting his own sons. I don’t know how true or false this story is, but I remember Titus telling me that he wanted to make a film out of the story. That never happened of course.

As I said, it was a time of inaction as far as the ordinary citizen was concerned. Time hung on my hands too. Our little son was growing in months meanwhile. I was glad he was only a baby.

Had he been a young man, who knows whether he too would have joined the rebels. I felt immeasurably sad when I thought of the plight of thousands of parents who had no information about their sons and daughters and who did not know what their fate would have been.

If succeeding Govts after Independence had trod a path of justice and fair play to ALL its citizens without concentrating on the citizenry of the cities, this rebellion could have been avoided. It is the unemployed and frustrated youth of the villages who made the main rank and file of the rebels.

What a pity that in a small country like Ceylon, succeeding Govts could not fulfil the dreams of so many young men and women. That trend of non-fulfilment still continues and we find our men and women seeking solace in the Middle East and other neighbouring countries such as Malaysia and Singapore - countries which were far behind us in progress immediately after the war.

Sense of dignity

To my mind any human being however humble his circumstances may be, NEEDS a sense of DIGNITY to live with. Whatever is given should be given with dignity. Whatever welfare is made available should be with dignity. When people lack that they become grovellers or they become angry rebels. They don’t feel they ‘belong’ and they become frustrated citizens.

Fortunately we had the baby to care and most of our time was taken on that. Yet, I did not want time hanging on my hands. So I thought I will prepare for the next production. I had been reading Bertolt Brecht’s ‘Mother Courage and her Children’ and the play fascinated me. We were not at war - not yet at least. But it was close enough to singe the hair on our arms. ‘Mother Courage’ would be a warning - a timely warning.

For nothing better to do, I started translating Mother Courage. It was a daunting task. It was a tougher play than Chalk Circle and the translation was tougher too. I took great pains over it and I think I did a fairly good job.

When I translated or rather adapted the Chalk Circle I took certain liberties with it. I pruned a couple of scenes that I felt were not absolutely essential. I also wanted to shorten the adaptation so that we could have a play that did not exceed two and a half hours of playing time.

That is about the limit we can hold the attention of our audiences - what with our ill-ventilated, uncomfortable play houses. In about 1970 ‘Hunuwataya’ - the translation of Chalk Circle was made a text for Arts students who were doing Sinhala for their degree. So I was very careful with ‘Mother Courage’.

Not that I expected it to become a text. But I considered I had a responsibility as a translator to do absolute justice to the original. So, not a word was dropped. No scene was left untranslated. This was a total and full translation of the original - done from Eric Bentley’s English translation of course.

Rehearsals

We had not done a new play after 1968. That was Apata Puthe Magak Nethe. This was early 1972. Four years had gone by. By now I had got over my ‘cold’ spell too. We had a young baby son at home.

I thought it would be a nice thing to start something new. And so we started rehearsals early that year. We drew up a good and practical rehearsal schedule as usual and stuck to it. I also indulged in a novel experiment with this play - that was double-casting. In Sinhala I called the play ‘Diriya Mawa Haa Ege Daruvo’.

Double casting

I cast Manel and Somalatha Subasinghe in the title role of Mother Courage, Sweenie Subasinghe and Sunila Abeysekera as Kattrin - the dumb daughter of Mother Courage, Wijeratna Warakagoda and Fitzroy de Mel as Chaplain and Ophelia Gunasekera and Mallika Boderagama as Yvette - the courtesan.

I must admit Manel was not too happy about double casting her character - it had never happened so far. But I explained to her that it was ‘normal’ practice in the professional theatre and that I was trying out an experiment. Of course she gave in.

There was another reason too for bringing in Somalatha Subasinghe. Her husband, Lionel Fernando, had gone abroad on some long scholarship or something like that and Sontha [the way we address Somalatha] was alone and lonely. She had not yet set out on her Children’s Theatre School and she had time on her hands.

When I asked her to join us, she was very happy about the opportunity. So we rehearsed - a happy group of thespians. Santin Gunawardhana was cast as Eilif, the elder son of Mother Courage and Somasiri Alakaolanga was Swiss Cheese - the honest son. Cyril Dharmawardhana was the Recruiting Officer and Elson Divituragama was the Commanding Officer. We had a large cast in our Mother Courage - as large as in Hunuwataya.

I have never seen Mother Courage being done without a revolving stage - certainly not in Russia, Germany, or in the West. We could not afford that luxury. So we simply had to device ways and means where the spectator is made to imagine that the cart rolled and that Mother Courage and the children moved with it.

When I mentioned that we were doing Mother Courage to the then Consul General of the German Democratic Republic here at that time - Mr. Faulwetter, he simply could not believe it. “How could you do Mother Courage without a revolving stage ?” was the first question he asked. “Don’t worry, we will make the audiences imagine that the cart moves.” I said.

And that is exactly what we did.

Thought of the week

So, the match is over. Given the harassment by rain and utter confusion among the umpires and the organizers it is not a great shame that we lost the World Cup by a mere fifty odd runs. It is more than creditable that we became runners up in the 2007 World Cup competition.

In any case it was a night of confusion and terror - at least for Colombo residents with the sound of artillery and gun fire coming from all sides and the whole of Colombo experiencing a blackout.

Why we could not shoot down a single enemy plane on all three occasions is another matter. Experts will give all kinds of excuses and come out with all kinds of arguments why it did NOT happen - just like our cricket commentators who indulge in very wise comments BEFORE the match.

My feeling is that we have TOO MUCH of it. [I wonder whether the same thing happens in other cricketing countries too, where a very wise looking panel of experts appear before the cameras and promise all kinds of things to the hapless spectator!]

The Australians were an arrogant lot from the very beginning. In fact they use their arrogance to brow beat the opposing sides. I believe they can afford to be arrogant - what with all their wins etc.

Fortunately and commendably, our men out there - men like Sanath, Kumar, Mahela - the whole lot in fact - were NOT cowed down by their arrogance. They faced up to the Aussies without trace of trepidation. It was just that we were unlucky - mostly with the miserable rain and the confusion among the decision makers.

Well done boys!, you are still heroes as far as I am concerned.

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