[View point]
who is destroying theatre?
Namel WEERAMUNI
I am happy that my good friend Dr. Michael Fernando has headed for a
debate on the present day theatre. He opines through his point of view
under the heading “Resurrecting or Destroying Sri Lankan Theatre?”
writing to “Artscope” on October 12.
He challenges my views on present day theatre that appeared on
October 5 of the same appendage of the Daily News through an interview
that Amalshan Gunarathne had with me. It’s a good sign if we can have an
open discourse on it. I believe it might help eradicate some of the
misunderstood notions that the young dramatists have embraced which I
consider would be beneficial for the enrichment of theatre in Sri Lanka.
He states that some of my statements contain several factual errors.
I agree but not regarding the contents of my statements. It is true
factually it’s erroneous that it had been interpreted as “young people
raping a dead corpse”. I regret on my part for having not been very
specific to state to the interviewer, as to the identity of the
intentional offenders of raping a corpse portrayed in the play,
‘Colombo, Colombo’. This I correct, “a funeral parlour employee asks two
middle aged men as to who would take the first turn”. This takes place
at the very end of the play. The two middle aged people did not come to
the funeral parlour for just fun and watch what was going on, as Michael
purports, but hopefully for their gratification.
Funeral parlour employee’s query suggests exactly amounting to an
invitation of rape of the carcass that was laid. I quote Dr. Fernando,
“where two frustrated old men waiting in a funeral parlour for the
arrival of a corpse of a young girl. This scene only depicts the
necrophiliac intentions of two frustrated old men”. This is what the
audience found disgusting though the young crowd howled with laughter.
May I ask, is this the message that a talented playwright should drive
at an audience, ridiculing and insulting a deceased? Certainly not in
the culture and environment I was brought up.
Dr. Fernando agrees in principle about the rape. So what is the
disagreement?
The persons were not old as was depicted in the play but middle aged,
the day I witnessed, the second day after it opened at the Lionel Wendt,
when one of the characters of the two was portrayed by Saumaya Liyange,
an actor whom I adore. My argument is the final message that the play
carried did not impress me but disgust.
Is this sort of experience, an universal characteristic? And at the
same does the playwright try to say that Sri Lankans are a nation of
sexual perverts whose acts should be taken to the world exhibiting by
way of this type of rubbish at international festivals. That is why I
arrived at the conclusion that “Colombo, Colombo” is a cup of vulgarism
after having considered the entire corpus of the play which also
included a suggestive scene of masturbation by a young man seated on a
bench at the park covering himself with an umbrella, watching the nearby
couples in the other benches having their private conversations. This
particular character was played by Jagath Chamila, another actor whom I
admire for his humility and talent.
No, Michael I saw the play. I am not insulting the young dramatists,
I admire them, when I see their praiseworthy works I go far and praise
them as well as condemn their unworthy works as I have done in this
instance of “Colombo, Colombo”. I call a spade a spade without beating
about the bush. Though I am an old hand I encourage and appreciate
modern thinking and change, but not when those thoughts are devastating
and abhorrent to the social settings. Don’t take me wrong, I am not a
social reformist, but a conformist of traditions and cultures whatever
the society it may be.
Justifying what the “two frustrated old men” did, Michael ascertains
that, “what the dramatist has tried here is to portray the plight of the
woman who is abused by men from birth up to death and even after death.
As we know this is part of the reality of many South Asian societies.”
From where did he pick up this notion? Not from a pamphlet, I believe,
that was distributed stating, that was the thematic intention of the
play. Certainly this did not spring out from the play save sexual
anxieties that a section of the present day young generation is imbibed
with. That is what manifests crudely in the play through its
theatricality and dialogues.
I quote again Michael, “As observed by the author of this article
‘Colombo, Colombo’ by Indika Ferdinando is one of the best plays, if not
the best, written and directed by a Sri Lankan dramatist in the 21st
century.
This play has already been staged at international theatre festivals
in New Delhi, Mumbai and Kathmandu. Weeramuni has also failed to grasp
the importance of the experiments carried out by present day
dramatists.”
Here he talks about three things. Firstly, it is one of the best, if
not the best written and directed in the 21st century by a Sri Lankan,
he is not sure of the two which, secondly that it was staged at
international festivals, and thirdly that it is an experiment. Is this
his assumed evidence sufficient to estimate, that it is one of the best,
if not the best because it won a number of awards at the Sri Lankan
drama festival, and staged at international theatre festivals. If these
are pieces of evidence that he brings forward to say that it is the best
play, I would not accept, for it is public secret, they are politically
and personally based and promoted in this country, which I would say
again had contributed for the deterioration of theatre dismissing real
talent.
I admire the experimentations that have been carried out by the young
dramatists. That is not in issue here, what is in issue is whether
“Colombo, Colombo”, an experiment, if he says yes, is it because of the
theatrical gimmicks that Indika Ferdinando had instilled abundantly in
his production. If that was the case, gimmick of dazzling with guitars
without any drama during the first twenty to twenty five minutes, made
me sick with sounds, and bored. Does Michael call this wastage of time
of the audience an experimentation? I don’t deny that Indika Ferdinando
is a very talented dramatist.
He proved it in his first production, “Janadipathi Tattha”. I did not
know who Indika was when I saw “Janadipathi Thatha”. But I praised him
and his play, in his absence with others. But all his subsequent
productions were failures, for the nonsensical introductions of
theatrical gimmicks in the name of experimentations without any
relevance to the themes of the plays that he did. So is the same in his
“Colombo, Colombo”.
I have confined only to the play and not other matters in the answers
to the interviewer of my views on Theatre. But I like to correct one
important missing error in it, namely that my future ambition is to
direct both “Sinhabahu”, and “Kuveni” in English in Sri Lanka, not “to
translate” because I have already translated both of them. The former is
published and was directed in the States. |
