I say goodbye to the stage

Henry Jayasena column

THEATRE: After my stint with advertising I did not look for another job. There were occasional calls from other Ad Agencies too - mostly for translating, or rather 'adapting' English copy which I did from home for which I got paid fairly well. Shirani Rubera also would call now and then - more or less for similar work. We remained good friends. We are still good friends.

I had plenty of work on the stage - mainly taking 'Hunuwataya' round the country. Because the book was a text we had to perform even in remote schools on make-shift stages.

We soon learnt to adapt ourselves to the particular situation and perform either with stage sets or even without. Very often there was no opening curtain or even side curtains.

We had to use a dilapidated classroom with all its desks and chairs as a dressing room. There were no toilets close by. One had to walk a fair distance - often in costume and in public view - to reach a toilet. Very often they were dilapidated old make-shift toilets. Commodes were unheard of.

Now when I think back, I shudder to think HOW we managed - especially the girls! Anyway it was ALL a worthwhile experience. Some of the young boys and girls [A/Level students] had never seen a play before. But they were ALL extremely enthusiastic audiences and in the flush of their unbridled enthusiasm, we forgot our inconveniences.

The outward journey was always full of fun and laughter. But on the journey back - especially if it was a long distance - our men and women, after two grueling performances were a tired lot.

After a couple of songs [often influenced of course by a surreptitiously served drink or two for the men before dinner] most of them would curl up in their seats and nod themselves to some sort of sleep.

Lonely roads

Most often it was Manel and I who kept awake watching the driver to make sure that he would not fall asleep on those lonely roads in the dead of the night. When I looked around and saw my fellow travellers, my men and women of the stage, sleeping in that manner my heart would fill with love for my wayfarers.

The scene inspired me to write a little poem of admiration and appreciation, which I will reproduce, as best as I could, in English on a later date, when I come to the end of this narrative.

I have a feeling that it is the strain of all those years of long distance travel, breaking rest - not to mention the drinks and the cigarettes - that are responsible for most of my ills and aches and pains of my poor body today! It must have affected Manel too [in her case certainly not the drinks and cigarettes!] when she developed renal failure, later in life. On the other hand it could well be our 'karma' and nothing else...

A few years passed by in this manner and we came to 1999. It was the 101st birth anniversary year of Bertold Brecht - the creator of The Caucasian Chalk Circle. We arranged to celebrate the event with a special performance of our Hunuwataye Kathawa together with an exhibition of Brecht's work etc.

I did not go to the BMICH or the Lionel Wendt for this special event but to our humble Lumbini Theatre at Hv. Town where all this began on the 7th of March 1967.

More than THIRTY years had gone by. There were still SEVEN of us who continued to play our respective roles in the production all these thirty years.

Manel as Grushe, me as Azdak, Wijeratne Warakagoda as Narrator, Chula Kariyawasam as Shauwa, Yasawathe Abeyratne as Ludovica, H.L.P. de Silva as Governor and Y.D. Piyasekera as Old Man in the Farm.

Even among us, some of us, including myself had missed a show or two due to illness or being abroad etc., but not Manel. She had performed her role as Grushe for THIRTY TWO years continuously, without missing a single performance.

She had somehow got on to the stage even when she was ill. [We had suspended Hunuwataya for about one year from May 1970 for the birth of our son] Manel's feat was a reason for our celebration too.

Graceful retirement

I had taken a decision of my own too. I had been on stage for a very very long time - more than 40 years. With this special performance I had decided to call it a day. At 68 I was beginning to feel the strain.

I thought it judicious to quit while I was still looking good on stage. It is always better to retire gracefully than to hang on shamelessly. I had only told Manel that I was going to retire from the stage after these two performances which were held on the 13th and 14th February, 1999. The two shows went off very well for capacity audiences.

Somehow the word must have got round that I was going to retire and strangely enough there was unusually prolonged applause for me when I came for the curtain call that night.

When the entire cast gathers on the stage for the final bow I wanted to go down on my knees and worship the stage in a gesture of leave-taking. But I found Manel and Chula Kariyawasam from either side holding on to my hands tightly, not allowing me to go down on my knees.

They must have conspired to do so. I could do nothing else but smile and bear up. Of course I chided them later when the curtain finally closed. Manel embraced me tightly and said "You are too good to retire. I won't allow it. I will not play Grushe without you as Azdak!" That brought tears to my eyes and that was the end of the episode.

But strange are the ways of life. Before we could do any more shows, I fell ill with a cancer of the colon in March that year. And that was the way the retirement was sealed.

Manel was too busy looking after me that we had to discontinue any shows of Hunuwataya. Azdak was ill, had to undergo an operation and had to report to the Cancer Hospital at Maharagama for chemo treatment for over 17 months. Manel had ceased doing Grushe without her Azdak - just as she threatened!

Guest performance

I forgot to mention another important episode relating to Hunuwataya Kathawa. Somewhere in September 1997 both of us were invited to Melbourne to launch a production of the play there. It was directed by Malinee Jayasinghe.

The entire cast were Sri Lankans living in Melbourne. Both Manel and I assisted Malini in the production. I did a sort of 'Guest Performance' of my own role of Azdak.

Manel did not play Grushe. It was played by a very experienced girl in the Sinhala drama circuit of Melbourne - Ratna Gurusinghe. I must say she did a fine job of it.

The role of the Narrator was played by Shyamon Jayasinghe - the original Pothe Guru of Maname.

Ajith de Silva played Simon Sashawa while Jean Jayasinghe played Queen Nataliya. [We used to call her Queen Jean] Practically every Sinhala drama enthusiast was in the cast. And some superb stage sets had been created by a man called Nihal de Mel.

Costumes were designed by Malini herself and had been superbly executed by a lady called Barbara Morris.

The production was an act of an organization called SPUR - a very active socio-political organization in Australia. Our play was performed on the 19 October 1997 at a rather plush Theatre in Melbourne - I forget the name. It was very well received by a culture-hungry capacity audience.

We made many friends during our stay of nearly two months in Melbourne. We were the guests of Malini and Shyamon Jayasinghe, but practically every evening we were invited to homes and community centers etc for a sing song and a dinner.

I don't think Manel and I have sung so many songs in our entire life time! Altogether it was a very pleasant and rewarding experience. Later, after the production was over, the entire set of costumes was gifted to us by the organizers.

To get back to March 1999 and my illness. Everyone who has gone through the trauma of a cancer will know what a 'dislodging' experience it is. Your whole life turns topsy-turvy. You become a different person - both physically and mentally.

Slim volume

However, while I was ill I penned a slim volume on my experience. It is called "BALHA GILANO - The Story of a Cancer Patient" I think the best thing is to reproduce its contents rather than go over the experience over again:- A note about the book

"Most readers of this book may not be familiar with the title words - 'Balha Gilano' -. When I first published the original Sinhala text of this book, I used these two words for the title. These two words come from the Mahamoggallana Sutta, the Maha Chunda Thera Sutta and the Girimananada Sutta, of the Pali Pirith texts. 'Balha Gilano' in Pali means gravely ill.

I was gravely ill with cancer of the colon recently. And I wrote about this experience while I was going through with the treatment - chemo therapy, radio therapy, blood and platelet transfusions etc.

I listened to recorded Pirith Suttas during this time and the two words 'Balha Gilano' fascinated me. In the Girimananada Sutta there is a fairly long discourse detailing the ten 'Sangnas' or the ten signals that should be made known to the gravely ill.

These two words fascinated me so much that I decided to retain them as a title for the version in English too."

To be continued

Thought of the week

The problem of grade 1 admissions to Govt. schools seems to be getting messier and messier. The issue was even taken to courts but the administrators of education found that some of the rulings of the Courts were unworkable.

Vasudeva Nanayakkara has even petitioned UNICEF on this matter. Says he, "You are the UN arm to protect children. The children of our country [Sri Lanka] are to be subjected to an unwarranted exercise of being tested for their abilities for admission to Year One in State schools...."

It is a great pity that we have to turn to organizations such as the UN to complain about injustices in our education. While it has always been a tricky problem for successive Govts. Education authorities and parents have somehow managed all these years to admit our children to some school or other.

As Mr. Nanayakkara rightly points out, it is the child of the poor under-privileged parents who will suffer if this scheme is to be put into practice. Poor parents cannot afford pre-school tuition classes etc. for their children. And what is the 'test' that could be given to a pre-school child?

While it is obvious that we need more schools - especially district wise - good well-staffed schools to meet the ever increasing demand, one comes to learn that some schools are even being closed down and others are on the verge of collapse! Surely it is the duty of the authorities to give each and every child an equal opportunity for education?

There should be a well planned long term process to uplift and upgrade the standards of each and every school. That would be the ONLY solution to avoid the scramble for a place in 'super' schools.

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