Are we heading in the right direction?

Channa Bandara Wijekoon

Decades back, we used to sit in front of the radio in every weekday to listento ‘Muwan Pelessa’. Characters such as Arachchila, Menike, Wedikkaraya and Pina gave us a mind-boggling experience of listing to a radio-play while creating imaginary and personalized visuals in our minds.

Sri Lanka was the first country to air a radio-play in the South Asian region.

There is a concept which says: ‘One visual is worth a thousand words’. According to Malaka Dewapriya the author of ‘Nihon* Sepa Lebewa’ (May you attain comfort while living in Japan), a compilation of self-written radio-plays, one word can trigger a thousand visuals in a listener’s mind. Malaka has compiled ten inspirational self-written radio-plays with rich content in his book. Amongst them, Nihon* Sepa Lebewa, Bhashmanthara, Mana Widamana and Nirabhishekana take reader on a trail towards a non-explored zone in human life.

Malaka has graduated from the Colombo University in 2005 and done further studies in Germany and South Korea on scholarships. He has excelled as a writer of radio-plays, short films and stage plays.

Philosophy

In his book ‘Radio as an apparatus of Communication’, Bertolt Brecht says a radio- drama is one of the best means to inspire people to imagine, think and debate.

“A radio-play is a piece of art which treats the listener as a co-creator of the storyline. Thus the listener is part and parcel of the creation itself. A fully fledged radio-drama has the ability to build up a philosophy in the listener’s mind which enables the listener to develop the story to a level which was not imagined even by the writer,” says Dewapriya.

In his book ‘Handa Naluwa Hewath Guwan Viduli Natya’, late Sugathapala Silva gives an insight to the art of radio-drama.

This medium surpasses other creative mediums such as novels, short-stories, poetry and even cinema due to its ability to enhance the ‘imagination’ within the listener.

New trends

In the present day, technology is used effectively in the global context to popularize radio-play. It has now become a means of communicative entertainment within the cyber space. There are web sites such as “theradiodramadirectory.com” which facilitates listening to radio-dramas live. There is also a culture of listening to radio-plays via mobile phones and iPods. ‘moonlightaudiotheatre.ca’ is connected with 90 countries and has over a million listeners for radio-dramas in North America alone. There are international competitions and festivals dedicated to radio-dramas.

Even the ‘fetish and consumption’ concept is used to attract listeners to radio-drama. BBCs annual budget for radio-plays is 19 million sterling pounds. They have correctly grasped the finer-points of this art and developed it with innovation to have a dedicated set of listeners globally. A cumulative radio air time of 1174 hours is used by the BBC for radio-plays and receives over 10,000 scripts in a year.

Sri Lankan scenario

In the decade of 1930, internationally acclaimed ‘short-stories’ were adapted as radio-dramas locally. Thus Maupassant’s ‘Necklace’ became ‘Diyamanthi Maalaya’. Likewise, ‘The man who married a dumb wife’ became ‘Golu Birinda’.

In the decade of 1940, when Charlie Chaplin did ‘The Great Dictator’, David Lean made ‘Bridge on the River Kwai’ and Mehboob Khan did ‘Mother India’, we did ‘Kadawunu Poronduwa’ and continued in that line. The same type of un- resourceful contributions hampered development of the local radio-play.

Scholars like Sugathapala Silva and Thilak Jayaratne grasped this medium well and went into the extent of doing experiments. Prof. Sunanda Mahendra and Dharmasena Pathiraja tried to develop a radio-drama culture. Late M J Perera sent individuals like P Welikela to BBC and got them trained in 1950 decade.

Since the authorities did not give due recognition and blessings to this exercise, they could not pursue any further on the subject. Even today, no literary award ceremony in our country recognizes radio-plays, in a scenario where international radio-playwright competitions are being held in many parts of the world.

Are we heading towards the right direction?

In Sri Lanka, we have over 45 radio channels. Neither of these channels seems to use the concept of radio-drama in an effective manner. Their sole intention is selling the air-time for profits. With this in mind they produce inferior quality radio-dramas using catchy dialogs (indecent at times) to keep the listeners intact, which is also an unethical means of communication.

Since this awkward category of radio-dramas are no near BBC ones, they have lost the privilege of benchmarking with global trends, says Dewapriya.

Television screen will be limited to 48 inches and cinema screen would confine to 30 feet or so. In contrast, the magic in a radio-drama to prompt imagination in listeners mind surpasses all boundaries. Also, it can address thousands of thousands of people in the world within a particular air-time.

Thus it is high time we gave a serious thought towards taking this ‘art’ of radio-play to the doorstep of the listener, concluded Dewapriya.

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