Creative inspiration from folklore
 Three books came out from a father and a son last week. The father is
Rohana Dandeniya, well known for his stage play of the nineties titled
as Parassa. He has been a researcher in the field of folklore and a
lecturer in aesthetics at the National Institute of Education.
He was a contributor to Radio and Television in the capacity of a
scriptwriter. The latest effort happened to be a collection of short
stories titled as Suba Karaliya. His son Taranga Dandeniya, a graduate
in aesthetics and fine arts from the Kelaniya University, has been
exhibiting his skills in the field of theatrical activities. His play
scripts Vanduru Navana Ha Kalakaraya (1995) won the best play script of
the year from the University of Peradeniya Students’ Literary Festival
of 1993/94. His collection of short play scripts won the best script
award from the National Youth Services Council in 2000.
His play Asani Walahaka (2005) won the state Drama Award for the best
Youth Contribution as the best director. All these and his skills as a
theatre researcher have paved the way to win a scholarship to do his
postgraduate studies in Australia, where his specialty had been the
studies directed towards folklore and the creative inspiration hence for
theatrical productions with special reference to the use of free theatre
as a structural change.
He has experimented this in his published play script which was
launched last week. The play is titled as Rasin Deviyo under the
sponsorship of the National Library Services Board.
This play script to my mind seeks to achieve several nuances which
deserve the attention. Most significant factor about this play script is
the material embedded as theatrical experiences emerging from historic
and folklore sources. Then comes the second dominant factor of
theatrical structure as the technique, which is quite modern as well as
extant in the folk plays of the country.
In the long introduction to the play script, Dandeniya outlines the
various folk materials that could go into the making of a present day
stage play, which in turn could address the contemporary conscience.
This factor could be taken seriously by the theatre producers of the
day, as most plays produced today are found remote and cut off from the
conscience of today.
Perhaps as the critics of today point out in the much discussed
discourses this is nothing but a rediscovery, or a rereading. As
Dandeniya states in the introduction to the text and uses them to the
fullest the elements in theatrical forms such as Kolam, Sokari, Nadagam
and various bali rituals could be fused as creative nuances that go into
the making of a modern play.
A few years ago the translation of Bertolt Brecht’s ‘The Chalk
Circle’ came to be used as a classroom text to teach literature. This
made perhaps an impetus to rediscover on the part of the teacher as well
as the student various theatre forms.
Both father Rohana and son Tharanga who hail from the North Central
Province of Sri Lanka show signs of their awareness of folk theatrical
forms that transcend the plane of creative thinking of Bertolt Brecht.
Dandeniya, who was attached to a postgraduate course in theatre arts
of the Monash University, has also brought out a translation of a play
script titled as Meepeni Pedesa.
The original author is one Jack Davies, whose play script is titled
as Honey Spot comes to us as a reminder of our own rediscoveries and
hint at a point of consideration to the value of a comparative study of
folk material rediscovered and recreated in modern terms.
Jack Davis’ play script, which I have not had the chance to read in
the original form, comes in Sinhala as a reminder of the need for the
emergence of a new writing style of plays. This is as an alternative
measure to the much discussed ‘well made plays’ of the Aristotelian
manner.
All in all the contribution of Dandeniyas is noteworthy. They are
reminders of what proper dimensions of a modern day creator ought to
possess. History, religion, folklore and theatre are woven together as
creative inspiration from time immemorial.
Dandeniya reminds us in his long introduction, the play text and the
translation of the play are based on aboriginal traditions to rethink of
a new variant to the existing pattern of creative thinking.
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