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Tuesday, 24 April 2012 |
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In fact, de Silva was better remembered today for adapting for the Lankan stage some of the world’s finest plays, which introduced concepts and practices of contemporary world drama to the theatre community and drama lovers. He also translated works of contemporary international fiction into Sinhala. Today’s Wiz Quiz salutes this free thinker, creative innovator, a radical and non-conformist. 1. In the opinion of many critics, Sugathapala de Silva’s best play was made in the aftermath of the 1971 youth insurrection. Although it was centred on a trade union struggle, it had an admixture of politics and art expertly mixed with technique. The play saw some superb acting by the late U Ariyawimal and W Jayasiri. It is now considered to be the precursor of serious political theatre in Sri Lanka which followed at the end of the 1970s. What was this path-breaking drama called? 2. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a well known play by Tennessee Williams. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955 and features several recurring motifs, such as social mores, greed, superficiality, mendacity, decay, sexual desire, repression and death. Sugathapala de Silva translated this play into Sinhala and staged it in Sri Lanka 1966. What was its Sinhala title? 3. ‘The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade’ is usually shortened to Marat/Sade. The work was first published in German, and adapted into Sinhala and staged in 1987 by Sugathapala de Silva starring Jackson Anthony in the lead role. It won awards for best translation and play in National Drama Festival in 1987. Who wrote the original 1963 play?
4. The Tea House of the August Moon which was first staged in 1955 was translated into Sinhala and staged by Sugathapala de Silva under the name Esala Sanda Avan Hala in 1983. Name the Swedish master filmmaker who originally created this play in Swedish. 5. Sugathapala de Silva was also a talented translator of fiction into Sinhala. Some of his translations include Ata Messa (Gad Fly, by Ethel Lillian Voynich), Godo Unnahe Enakan (Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Becket), Hitha Honda Ammandi (The Good Woman of Setzuan, by Bertolt Brecht). De Silva carried out his last literary translation while ailing and partly bed-ridden. This time, he chose the work of a Lankan-born Canadian writer of fiction, Shyam Selvadurai, who achieved fame with his novel Funny Boy (1994) which won Canada’s first novel award. Name the title of the Sinhala translation. 6. The opinionated author Salman Rushdie is no stranger to controversy. He often creates ripples with his spoken or written words. Speaking at the India Today Conclave in March 2012, Rushdie criticized a popular figure in Pakistan who had declined to attend the same event because of Rushdie’s presence – apparently in response to the author’s controversial Satanic Verses that many muslims found objectionable when it was published 25 years ago. Rushdie’s reaction was these words: “If you were making a movie of the life of Gaddafi and you wanted a slightly better-looking version of Gaddafi you might cast….” Who? 7. The George Cross is the highest civil decoration of the United Kingdom, and also holds, or has held, that status in many of the other countries of the Commonwealth of Nations. It was instituted in September 1940 by King George VI, to honour many acts of civilian courage during World War II. Up to April 2012, it has been awarded to a total of 161 recipients, which included two collective awards. One was to the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). The other was to a whole country. Which country was thus honoured, in April 1942, for the heroism and devotion of its people during the great siege it underwent in the early parts of World War II. The George Cross is now part of that country’s national flag?
8. On April 16, 2012 the executive Board of the World Bank chose the United States (US) nominee to be the next President of the World Bank. The 52-year-old Korean-American will succeed the current World Bank head Robert Zoellick, and start serving a five-year term from 1 July 2012. This will be the first development professional to head the World Bank: a physician and anthropologist who has spent most of his career focusing on global health issues. He co-founded Partners in Health, which works in developing countries and he headed the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) department at the World Health Organization. Who is he? 9. The latest designation of the World Bank President continues a tradition where all holders of that position have been Americans. The first President of the World Bank was an American financier, public official and one time Chairman of the US Federal Reserve (Central Bank) from 1930 to 1933. He was also the publisher of the Washington Post newspaper. Although he served as World Bank president only for six months in 1946, he laid the foundation for the new institution drawing on his own practical experiences in government and investment banking. Who was he? 10. The former Soviet Union pioneered the Space Age, and the United States soon followed. After these two, it was Canada that became the third country in the world to build its own satellite, which was launched into earth orbit on 29 September 1962 by an American rocket. This satellite was used to study the ionosphere, an area of the upper atmosphere, and its mission lasted for 10 years before it was deliberately switched off. It is still orbiting the earth. What was its name?
11. Instead of the traditional Easter Bunny, Australians have started promoting a rare marsupial that has long ears, a long muzzle, silky fur and a pouch like a kangaroo. Males of this species grow to about the same size as a rabbit, but only some 600 are estimated to remain in the wild, and its habitat is being steadily eaten away by rabbits, which were introduced to Australia and are now considered a pest. What is this marsupial? 12. James Cameron’s 1997 movie Titanic was claimed to be historically authentic about the ship and the accident that sank it, but a diligent astronomer found that the movie had used a wrong night sky for the night of the sinking. It had been a ‘cloudless and moonless’ night, but the star formations shown in the movie were simply not possible for that location, he argued. After a decade of lobbying by the astronomer, Cameron agreed to correct this when releasing the movie in 3D for the centennial of the event, based on the exact constellation map for the sky around 4:20 am on April 15, 1912. Who is the Harvard-trained astrophysicist who lobbied for this change? 13. Name the American philosopher, poet and essayist who once noted, “We change, whether we like it or not” 14. With less than 100 days to go for the London Olympic Games and the London Paralympics, interest in the sporting world’s biggest event is mounting. The official mascots for the two events were unveiled in May 2010. They were created and designed by iris, a London-based creative agency, and are animations depicting two drops of steel from a steelworks in Bolton. What are their names, both derived from two place names in England? 15. The world has just marked the centennial of the RMS Titanic and its tragic sinking while on the maiden trans-Atlantic journey. It was a reminder to us all that Titanic remains one of the great mythic events of the 20th Century. Name the American historian who once remarked, “The three most written-about subjects of all time are Jesus, the (US) Civil War, and the Titanic.” Last week’s answers1. Thomas Hardy (1840 – 1928) 2. Walter Lord 3. 'I’m the king of the world!' 4. Ghosts of the Abyss 5. The Ghost From the Grand Banks 6. Wallace Hartley 7. UNESCO 8. Christ Church College, Matale 9. Dr Mudalinayaka Somaratne 10. Wijeratne arakagoda 11. Chang Heng 12. The Holocene 13. Margaret Mead 14. Tarzan, the ape man 15. Dambane Gunawardana |
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