Anouilh's creativity sparks on Sinhala stage

With Namel Weeramuni's Nattukkari :

Jayanthi LIYANAGE

Scenes from Nattukkari

The play Nattukkari produced by Namel Malini Punchi Theatre and directed by Namel Weeramuni, will go on boards on August 14, 15 and 16 with a star-studded cast: Surangi Kosala, Ruwan Wickremasinghe, Janaka Mawella, Malini Weeramuni, Deepani de Silva, Sannette Dikkumbura, Anushi Dissanayake, Anil K. Wijesinghe, Visaka Jayaweera, Senevirathne Bandara, Daya Tennekoon and Tharindu Madhushanka. Music, directed by Premasiri Khemadasa in previous productions, will be provided by Jayatissa Alahakoon.

Nattukkari is Namel's translation of the French playwright Jean Anouilh's 'Colombe'. In his introduction and analysis of Anouilh's plays, given in the published script Nattukkari, Namel says that the play is about disillusionment with life which is the thread running through the entire production. Julian is the first son of the great actress Madam Alexandra. He is an idealist and a man of pride. He abhors the theatrical world he had been brought up in, seeing it as one of conspiracy and falsehoods. He entrusts his wife Colombe to the care of his mother while he goes to the war front and loses the wife who is engulfed in the theatre world. Colombe's life changes as she internalises the shallow, ostentatious and sycophant chatter of his mother. She is caught up in a love entanglement with Julian's younger brother Paul, and becomes his mistress. This brings great sadness and disillusionment to Julian. This disillusionment is not the lost of only Julian. It is the theme running through all the characters.

"I call Nattukkari a tragicomedy," says Namal. "We are telling the tragedy through comedy. I am trying to depict the loneliness of the characters. However much power a person may have in himself as a person, ultimately he has to bow down to somebody. I have symbolized that in the play right throughout. It is a highly tensed comic play which will give food for thought."

Anouilh is a product of the last century. He was born in 1910 in Bordeaux in France to a professional violinist serving in Arachon Casino band. His father was a tailor. Anouilh made his entry to the theatre arena by composing short plays. He became an actor and a producer after starting to work as the secretary of the well-known French playwright Louis Jouvet. In 1931, he wrote and produced the play, L'Hermine, and married actress Mono Valentin.

She acted the main role in Anouilh's adaptation of Antigony in 1944 and became very popular. From 1937 to 1959 he wrote and produced a number of plays and became a celebrated playwright. In all his plays, his depiction of meaningful social realities and ironical analysis of life and soul is clearly seen.

Namel says that the most striking feature of Anouilh's plays is his creative conversation. His language is powerful, colloquial, lilting and varied. His words are chosen with economy and disciplined appropriateness. Perhaps the same words can be employed to describe Namel's Sinhala script of the play.

A critic named Marsh has commented that Anouilh-created characters in Nattukkari to laugh at qualities he had valued earlier. Anouilh is seen as a writer who has grasped human weaknesses well. In the play, one finds sympathy for Colombe and intellectual approval for Julian. Julian's puritan idealism has no value in the end and his character is depicted as unattractive.

Anouilh is seen as a writer who mocks the idealism he failed to find in reality.

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