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Three strangely normal plays about life in
Sri Lanka, particularly in the context of the ongoing war
between the Tamil ethnic minority and the Sinhala majority, were
staged at Chennai Music Academy on Sunday August 5, 2007.
Stages Theatre Group, Colombo, performed
these plays as part of the theatre festival organised by ‘Metro
Plus’ of ‘The Hindu’ newspaper from August 2-12, 2007.
These plays were of special appeal to those
who follow the events in the island nation on a day-to-day
basis. It refreshed memories of events that happened not so long
ago.
Director Ruwanthie de Chickera, writer
Dhananjaya Karunaratna and the entire cast of the Stages Theatre
Group deserve special accolades for putting up such a brilliant
performance. Their work speaks volumes about Sri Lankan theatre
that thrives even in a war-like situation in this tear drop
island.
The first performance was ‘Last Bus Eke
Kathawa’, a one-man Sinhala play based on a true story that took
place during the 1989 JVP insurrection. Skillfully woven story
within story, the child and wife of the protagonist are whisked
away by someone in power and authority. The protagonist, having
failed to get his family back, becomes a mental wreck. He boards
the last bus in the dead of the night, in a drunken state, and
narrates his chilling story to the passengers. In the end, he
rewards them with currency notes that he generously strews all
over the place. This stereotype that was pushed to the extreme,
touched a deep chord in the audience sitting in the darkness of
the hall.
Gihan de Chickera performed this one man play
with tremendous zest and a perfect sense of comedy. His
narrating style, mutating body with perfect ease, and shifts in
the tone of his language were all amazing. The drunken man in
him won hands down.
The second play ‘24 Hrs,’ was based entirely
on actual news headlines that were reported between 7 a.m. on
August 14 and 7 a.m. August 15, 2006. This play, written within
the discipline of verbatim theatre, used the auction bids as a
canvas to highlight media reports. The suicide attack on
Pakistan’s Ambassador to Sri Lanka, the bombing of Jaffna
schoolchildren and many more news items refreshed the memory of
the blood and gore that splashed all over the island nation in
those 24 hrs.
The third play was called ‘Checkpoint’. It
was part of ‘forum theatre’ that began with the performance of a
scene that ends in a crisis. The audience was then asked to
resolve this crisis. The concluding scenes are enacted based on
the suggestion offered by those watching the play.
The scene was a Sinhala girl being married to
a Tamil boy and both living in Colombo. An 18-year-old boy from
Jaffna comes down to live with this family for getting his visa
to the UK. The lady of the house is unaware of the presence of
the Tamil boy. She comes to know of it only from her brother and
sister-in-law who inquire about the boy during their visit to
the house for a dinner.
The brother refuses to entertain the idea of
a Tamil boy living in his sister’s house. He wants his
brother-in-law to throw out this boy at once. He does not want
his sister’s house to be raided for terrorists. An altercation
takes place resulting in a crisis.
The audience was asked to engage in creative
thinking to play out this story. There was great deal of
participation and many suggestions were put into circulation.
The group performed three additional scenes, following the
storyline proposed interactively.
One among them was, a police raid takes place
and the identification of all the characters was done. The boy
could not prove his identity and was whisked away.
The beauty of ‘Checkpoint’ is that the entire
script was devised on the spot and the scenes were enacted with
little or no instruction from the director. It was remarkable
that the actors were able to develop the idea of the audience
into full-fledged scenes, without any rehearsal.
‘Checkpoint’ narrates the difficulties of
those living in Colombo. The residents are subject to security
checks even for commuting short distances. They cannot step out
of their homes without their identity cards. They have to show
their IDs to uniformed personnel stationed at several
checkpoints in the city. That’s how life is back in Colombo, at
least that’s what the characters of the play wanted to convey to
the audience in Chennai.
‘Checkpoint’ was first performed in Colombo
in 2001 in the turbulent times of the pre-ceasefire agreement.
It was enacted again in 2006 in the midst of great uncertainty
and unrest in Sri Lanka. The August 5, 2007, performance in
Chennai was first of its kind outside the country.
The first play presented the problem, the
second highlighted it with media reports, and the third was an
effort towards its solution. There was gradual building of
tempo, actors, sets and even lighting from one play to another.
The performances also moved from one level to another. The first
had a solo actor holding the audience in a spell, the second, a
few talented artistes, auctioned media reports, and the third
involved audience interaction.
The three strangely normal plays from Sri
Lanka were a feast to the audience of Chennai. The performances
demonstrated the brilliance of Sri Lankan theatre. Many in the
hall felt that serious issues need not necessarily be told
through emotional scenes. Overall it was a satisfying experience
on a lazy Sunday evening.
Syed Ali Mujtaba
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