Wizard of Theatre

Ishara Jayawardane

Charismatic and confident Feroze Kamardeen was the epitome of self-assuredness as he sauntered into the garden at the Commons. A Dramatist of the highest caliber Feroze has made an indelible mark on the English Theater scene in Sri Lanka. His name is one that can instantly open any door because he as branded his name in the industry.

Feroze Kamardeen. Picture by Sarath Peiris

An actor and a director who is incredibly talented, he puts me at ease in 'Encounter of the Week'.

Q: You have directed many plays such as Animal Farm, Widows, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Macbeth and Julius Caesar. Which play really stands out for you and why?

A: Every play is very special. I suppose from a purely personal point of view, some of the plays that are really special are the ones that carried with it a huge difficulty factor in executing the play and also in terms of, if you look at some of the things that I have done in the recent past they've also included work that I have written myself, plays that I have written myself. Most of the plays you have mentioned: Animal Farm, Widows, Macbeth and Julius Caesar, they are all from other playwrights. The entire Pusswedilla series, I'm the playwright as well as directing it. They have a very special bond with me because it is my own play.

If I could pick one play that I consider was the most satisfying I think it would be Hamlet at Elsie's Bar, because that again was something that I wrote. I had a team that worked on music, vocal directions, production and set. And in terms of the difficulty factor, it was very difficult because we were doing live music so we had to get an entire band ready. Musicians had to get ready as well as the actors. From a point of view of that, that is my favorite. Hamlet At Elsie's Bar is a musical comedy, it is a fictitious story about Shakespeare going through a writer's block. And he hangs out at this bar, called Elsie's Bar.

And the things that happen in the bar actually give him the inspiration to write Hamlet, sometimes considered his greatest work and one of the best pieces of English Literature. Having said that all the plays have a very special bond because in the rehearsal process, working with the actors, coming up with our own interpretations you sometimes you get a sense of attachment to the play. Even Widows which we did recently, it was a huge effort from the cast, a very difficult acting piece for the cast to pull off. What we achieved was phenomenal.

Q: What inspired you to create 'Stagelight and Magic'?

A: In 1996 we did Macbeth, and when we started doing Macbeth, one of the things that we wanted to do was to kind of be an avenue for young people to express themselves on stage. My theory was that the old hands knew how to do things and we young people didn't know. I figured the best place to learn how to do things was to do it. No amount of books, advice or manuals can help you unless you have first hand experience.

Hamlet at Elsie’s bar

Widows

Pusswedilla

So we decided to do Macbeth, it was a collective effort. Very later on in production we came to the realization that it had to be done by a company. We didn't have a company because we were a group of actors and friends doing a play. We were scrambling to sort it out and finally we couldn't in time,so we presented Macbeth through my friend Adam's performing Arts Company. It was actually presented by the Performing Arts Company because they were established and in terms of an audience acceptance , presenting a play through an established company kind of helps.

Then after Macbeth we sat down and thought we have to come up with our own kind of thing. The founder members of 'Stagelight and Magic' were myself, Ifaz Bin Jameel, Chalaka Gajabahu, Nalindra Godakanda and Thanuja Weeratne. Strangely enough the name itself it is very reminiscent to another famous name - George Lucas' company, Industrial Light and Magic. I think it was Ifaz that came up with the idea. The stage is where we perform and the lights is to represent all the technology and that is one of our focus points to make sure that we explore every bit of technology available. Even when we do a play we market the play.

Magic is that special something that the actors bring to the production.

Q: How challenging was doing Ariel Dorfman's well known play Widows?

A: Widows presents a very difficult challenge in that it is very easy to be overcome by the emotions of the play.

It is also a very difficult piece to rehearse because actors when they are rehearsing they do get emotionally stressed. That is something we have to very mindful of. One other thing that we did with widows is we didn't make any obvious attempt to allude it to any identifiable country including our own.

And the reason for that is Dorfman is very clear that the play had to take place in a very unidentified country. And one of the reasons we overcame those challenges were by sitting down and discussing what each one was going through and the emotions that they felt. Before every performance and every major rehearsal we would just sit down and shut ourselves out for a good four five minutes. Almost like blank your mind out, forget whatever problems or stresses you have in your life and get into that.

So it is almost like they have transported themselves in their mind to this remote village in an unknown country and then assume those roles. It is challenging because you need to makes sure that you don't over rehearse your cast, you need to make sure that you keep the atmosphere outside the rehearsal light enough so that because after rehearsals few of them are literally in tears. The scene is so emotional for them. All the tears people saw on stage were real. Nobody put them on you can't fake that. Those are real emotions that people felt. Because they transported themselves to that particular moment in the play.

Q: When you reflect on Accidental Death Of An Anarchist, are you satisfied with how it went? In your opinion, was it a success?

A: For sure, it was probably one of the most challenging trying plays I have done. Not because of anything else but because four months before we were due to perform the entire cast got hit by chicken pox, one by one. It was uncanny because every two weeks a cast member would go down including myself. Every single member of the cast was affected with the exception of one. Getting the cast together turned out to be a massive challenge. Because at any given time there was one person with chicken pox. That was one of the plays we actually adapted to the Sri Lankan context.

Dario fo's plays are far more easily adaptable and we did adapt it to a Sri Lankan context, in terms of the incidents that happened, the names the places. I was lucky because I had some fabulous actors. Adam himself played a role, Ifaz, played one of the leads, Anuruddha, Jehan Bastians, Michelle Perera. In terms of that I was quite lucky to have great actors.

Q: Macbeth is a play that has been done time and again by so many people. How different was your approach to the production?

A: Basically one of the things we did with Macbeth, obviously, we played very true to Shakespeare's original intentions. One of the things we tried to do was make it spectacular in terms of staging, it in term of the sword fights. It was the first time we experimented with rock music in a Shakespearean play.

We decided we were going to do the sound track but we didn't want the same old sound track that you hear. So we experimented with doing rock music in that setting. All the music was pure rock music such as Princes of the Universe. And it kind of worked. For a change it worked.

It also resonates a lot with the young people. They enjoyed the spectacle of the play and that was great for us because people generally wouldn't sit through a two hour forty minute Shakespeare production and they sat through it. So that itself was a great success.

Macbeth was our first play and it was the first play that gave us a full houses right through. Apart from opening night every other day was sold out. It was an amazing satisfactory experience.

Q: If you were to put together a dream cast who would be in it?

A: Depends on the play really. I like to think that when it comes to Pusswedilla I actually have almost a dream cast. Right now I have the luxury of having almost a dream cast. They know their roles they know their characters. I know what they can do, I write the play for them. The play is written for the characters so they become almost a dream cast. So it depends really on each play. For certain roles certain actors are brilliant. I think to have a dream cast you have to figure out what the play is and then put together a dream cast. Because not everybody can play every role.

Q: You have worked with many actors and actresses. Which actors and actresses did you connect with the most?

A: I pride myself on having a different bond with each and everyone of my actors and actresses. They even call me different things. Some people call me Feroze, some people call me 'Nana' and one actor calls me chief. With each actor I have different bonds and relationships.

Q: Caesar is a character that even historians find difficult to understand. How difficult was it doing Julius Caesar?

A: Julius Caesar was a very interesting project. Because when I talk of the Julius Caesar project I think it is unfair that these two people never get mentioned. And I would like to set the record straight. Julius Caesar was not just my brainchild that we did in 1997. It was a brainchild of three people. Dylan Perera and Samantha de S. Wijeratne. So myself, Dylan and Sam we sat down and we figured out we wanted to do Julius Caesar, and thought how could we do it in a different way? We wanted to do it modern. And then the three of us came up with this storyline incorporating Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to a completely modern setting. We took a fair amount of liberties in this sense. We turned Rome from a city in Europe to a city state. And we based it somewhere in Latin America. Julius Caesar became a general who wanted to become a political leader as well. From there onwards we told the entire story through the lens of a camera. So what the audience was seeing was the play as a flash back.

Q: Why are you passionate about Drama?

A: I used to go to Speech and Drama classes. My first teacher was Nalin De Alwis. Then Mrs. Jeganathen, Mrs. Whatmore and Mrs. Holsinger. Through them I developed this passion for performing. At my school D.S. Senanayake we had this small young drama team. Our main focus was taking part in the Shakespeare Drama Competition. The passion that was there it kind of stuck.

Q: Are you planning any productions at the moment?

A: We had a fairly busy year theater wise. And we are hoping to try and be as busy next year. So we are trying to do the Noir theater fest. We have done three theatre festivals so far. And the play that we did recently, Widows, is also a part of our Noir Theater brand. So we are trying to do the Noir theater fest in the first half of next year.

I have already started writing part four of the Pusswedilla series. It will happen towards November next year. The Noir theater fest takes place across many weekends and showcases multiple plays. So those are our plans for next year.