Theatre of eighties: Speck of retrospect

Aravinda Hettiarachchi

The period of 1980 was a golden era in Lankan theatre and also an era of shattered political hopes among the youth. The era paved way to different and relentless creations. This whole era appears as a cluster of uncounted small stories.

Dylan Perera was a dramatist interested in theatre towards the end of 1980s but never did a theatre production after his one and only collection of Shakespeare’s Clowns sponsored by the British Council. Dylan was a character of different aesthetic thought who was always inspired from English theatre.

Priyankara Rathnayake hails from a less fortunate segment, which vandalized largely everywhere in the Sinhala and English artistic fields throughout the 80s. He was also different in character and endeavoured scrutinizing a pragmatic artistic way through both Sinhala and English theatres.

His then intention of producing West Side Story on Sinhala Stage radiated this enthusiasm of his fortune-hunting. Yet much later, his destiny gradually changed with performance in Tissa Abeysekara’s Wanasarana.

Dylan resided in Havelock Town - an upper middle class homelike environment - while Priyankara lived in Kelaniya - wingspan of slum.

This sketch is all about their inter-related aesthetic story under the socio-economic context at the edge of 80s. These two individuals had an opportunity to experience each other’s then artistic compasses despite different social strata.

They shared each other’s artistic lives unto a genuine extent. Yet their random encounter happened only for specific reasons. Initially the politically effected background of 88-89 connected them as discursive friends.

Secondly, during this period, they were both Kalaniya University undergraduates though studied different subjects. And they were curiously looking through each other’s extrinsic world of aesthetics: Priyankara towards English theatre and Dylan towards Sinhala theatre. Hence both of them became good friends in an infamous artistic world totally unknown to the public.

Yet today, as far as I know, Priyaknara and Dylan are not aware of the whereabouts of each other.

Look at this story!

Why did these things happen this way?

If I sum my thoughts, the real difference of these two individuals proves why this kind of relationship easily happened yesteryear but not today. The historical difference between 80’s and today, the difference between the cultural classes of Priyankara and Dylan, the difference between then English and Sinhala theatre, the difference between Kelaniya and Havelock Town and etc should be considered.

The British Council supported Dylan to produce an English theatre production. Yet Dylan has done something totally unconventional to our familiar English theatre. He analytically studied all Shakespeare plays as a sequence from the beginning to end. Then from each script he removed the acts where the clowns are.

His whole play was a chain of these acts where clowns take part created according to the order where Shakespeare develops his clown from just a joker to a psychologically serious character. In King Lear this clown becomes mad.

This was no easy task though on surface it appears as a simple vocation. And Dylan was a person with talent and artistic delicacy to catch this obscure nature of Shakespeare’s clown. And the money given by then British Council spaced Dylan to create his own passion about Shakespeare’s Clown. Yet it did not continue after its first performance in the small auditorium of British Council.

On the contrary, Priyankara did not have cash to do the Sinhala version of West Side Story. His play ended up just a discussion. Today Priyankara may have a lot of financial opportunities to stage a play. But he didn’t have that opportunity in the 80s.

Priyankara could even find out the exact cast of an early English theatre production of West Side Story. And his ideas of creating music and choreography to this play were eloquent.

Dylan and Priyanakara shared a lot from their own perspectives on art. Yet I suppose that they did not share their intimate matters of private and public lives. They were foreign to each other on this particular matter. They shared a very little from their own lives though they were artistically affiliated to each other. They could not apply their real lives into their artistic discussion.

They avoided it or some obstacle blocked them. They were both left unspoken on this. Dylan never had a chance to visit the slum house at Wanawasala though Priyankra used to visit Dylan’s house at Havelock’s Town several times.

This unfinished story or stories happened 20 years ago. Now things are very different. Dylan, Priyankara and I live in different realities of life. Existing system has replaced us in different places. Dylan and I already tied up in tasks totally different to our previous dreams of a better artistic future. As a whole, three of us today are very much distant to each other. Yet Priyankara is trying his best to do something in theatre, cinema and teledramas. Dylan and I should be proud of it.

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