Capturing Shakespearean essence
Amalshan Gunerathne
Enacting Shakespearean character structures on stage is by no means
an easy task. While grasping the core essence of maestro’s creative
stage-work, the actor has to portray his role in a manner that would
leave audience in absolute awe.
He has to think about the subtext of every line, and emphasize it
accordingly. The challenge is to do full justice to the original
stage-play. Young Abdul Baasith Sathar from D.S Senanayaka College
overcame these challenges with great skill to win the Best Actor award
in this year’s Shakespeare Drama Competition.
 “The acting is all about creating magic on the stage,” Abdul says. He
captured the audience with a riveting performance, as he enacted the
challenging role of legendary Roman Leader ‘Coriolanus’. Expressing his
thoughts on the challenging role, he noted, “Pulling off something like
Coriolanus was not an easy task. First you have to understand the
character. You have to understand what Shakespeare is trying to convey
through each and every line.
Coriolanus is a passionate role and the drama itself is very much a
word play, it is only when you can grasp the essence of the drama that
you can do full justice to the play.”
Coriolanus, though pretty much underrated among Shakespeare’s other
tragedies, still has great contemporary relevance for our times. Abdul
feels that the drama has a great significance to modern day politics. “I
felt, the experiences that Coriolanus went through had great relevance
to some of the modern day political figures in our times. In a sense
that made the drama universally appealing,” he expressed.
Abdul’s journey as a budding, young stage-actor is an inspirational
one.
The theater gave him the confidence and the self-belief to push
himself to greater heights. The theater has been a great platform to
showcase his talents. “I was never a person who could have made such
speeches at a public stage. After I started acting, I lost the stage
fear.
The stage gives you the platform to step up, and boosts you,
motivates you and challenges you to surpass your limits. It builds up
your personality,” Abdul says.
The Shakespeare Drama Competition has been an exhilarating experience
for Abdul and his fellow cast. Sharing his thoughts from the experiences
of the competition, Abdul said, “Just before we took the center stage,
Ananda College performed a comedy, ‘Taming of the Shrew’. The audience
was pumped up and was in a jovial mode. That made our task even more
challenging. We had to soothe them down to the tragedy mode. I thought
we did it expertly.”
It is for the ninth time that a student from D.S Senanayaka College
won the best actor award. D.S Senanayaka College won silverware as they
were crowned as the runners-up of the competition. However, Abdul has
mixed feelings about his team coming second best in the competition. “I
am really happy and proud about my own achievement. Winning such a
prestigious award was a great thing for me, but I am really heartbroken
that our play could not go on to win the ultimate best drama award.”
While expressing his joy, Abdul also expressed his gratitude towards
his fellow cast, without whom his achievement would have been possible.
“Amaz Irshard, the actor who played the role of Senator Menenius was
superb. I even felt that he should have won the award for the best
supporting actor role; unfortunately the award went to someone else.
Overall, everyone did a great job; the director Shashane Perera was very
helpful to me, assistant directors Shamin De Silva and Jihan Riza also
helped us a lot.” |
