Udayasiri Wickramaratne has for years entertained us with
wit, creativity, philosophy and his understanding of political economy through
his columns in the Divaina, especially
Aarthika Vihilu (Economic Jokes,
written under the name ‘Andarei Smith – Grandson of Adam Smith’) and ‘Aadaraye Shabdakoshaya’ (Dictionary of
Love). He translated into Sinhala for
the Divaina the weekly column on
economic issues penned by the late Dr. Jayantha Kelegama (writing as ‘Kanes’)
and later started his own column.
Both Aarthika Vihilu
and Aadaraye Shabdakoshaya (e.g.
‘Marriage Registrar: the person who writes love’s death certificate’) provide
ample evidence of Udayasiri’s talent at word-turning. The economy and sharp observation naturally
describe the poetic potential which found expression in a collection titled ‘Dawal Sihinen Dutu Kumariya’ (A
princess who arrived in a daydream).
His literary CV includes two plays; Eelanga Javanikaavak Nethi Naatyayak (1991) which won many National
Youth Awards for theatre that year and Thunveni
Lokaya (1990) selected to the second round of the State Drama Festival.
While a student at Colombo
University
Endowed with a sympathetic eye for things rural but one that
is not over-weighted by awe or romanticism and therefore containing an incisive
edge, Udayasiri’s reflections on ‘village’ life is ethnographic and constitutes
in my opinion a ‘must’ reading for
sociology students interested in figuring out the ‘logic’ of rural social
processes in Sri Lanka.
Kiri Amma
(Grandma) and Gamen Upan Katha
(Stories born of the village) are more than ‘sociological snippets’ though.
They have literary value. Udayasiri, in
short, knows how to tell a story and this is evident in his longer narrative, Swarnamali Maharaja, which is an
easy-read version of the complex issues that makes their way into the troubled
mind of Prince Dutugemunu during his period of exile. The author weaves in to
the main narrative the most telling strands in the historical transcripts
contained in folklore and gives us a fresh and compelling version of related
events and personalities.
Swarnamali Maharaja (that’s Kavantissa, by the way) is a
soliloquy of sorts and it is easy to understand how Udayasiri came to adopt
that format in theatre. His latest play,
which is in fact a collection of not totally unrelated ‘playlets’, Suddek Oba Amathai (A white man
addresses you), performed for the first time (deliberately) on All Fools’ Day,
April 1, 2010, at the Lumbini Theatre, comprises of 4 ‘talks’. We are addressed by a white man (played by
Naveen Pradeep Udawela), by history (Jayalath Manoratne), by a woman (Madhani
Malwattage) and by ‘a man who lives in fear’ (Keerthi K Ratnayake).
The format itself was ‘new’ to audience but not new to
‘tradition’, according to Udayasiri. He
claimed, in a pre-show conversation that we are a society that is used to
listening to lectures and that is why there are many who are glued to their
television sets listening to politicians talking shop. We are used to listening to bana and to jathaka katha. True. It worked by and large, although the script
clearly needed extensive editing to obtain a tighter and therefore more
dramatic articulation of idea.
In short, it need not have taken 2.5 hours to say all the
things that were said. All the points
made (and they were excellent observations by the way) could have been
contained in a production that took not more than an hour and a half, I
felt. As it happened, elaboration and
repetition took something away from the dramatic power of Udayasiri’s penchant
for economy in statement.
A sudda has a lot
to say, as do ‘history’, a woman and a man who is terrified. That’s several libraries worth of books I
would say, to give some perspective to the challenge that Udayasiri had set
himself. Still, there was carelessness
in stringing together various aspects that the playwright had chosen to
privilege. The movement from topic to topic was jerky at times. The best rendered of the 4 segments was
history’s soliloquy, and that’s thanks to both power of script as well as
Jayalath Manoratne’s incomparable stage-presence.
Manoratne was so good that the others appeared weak. Not that they were terrible, no. Soliloquys are not easy to dramatize. Even Brutus’ soliloquy on the abuse of
greatness in Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’ was less than two dozen lines and
could be got through in less than 4 minutes. These were longer affairs and the
challenge was naturally greater. Naveen
Pradeep Udawela could not bridge the rockiness of the script in places although
the ideas and the poetry embedded in the script helped hold the attention of
the audience.
Manoratne went next with ‘history’. Udayasiri had thrown in enough song and
historical anecdote was laced with reference to the political present in deft
and clever ways for Manoratne to deliver.
It was a great piece of entertainment with Manoratne drawing extensively
from his considerable range of dramatic resources. Long, yes, but there was no dip in
intensity.
Keerthi K Ratnayake was both ‘a man who lives in fear’ and
‘a man in a hurry’, it seemed. Udayasiri
had deliberately written a fast-paced, (too) short piece which had a lot of
potential in content but appeared far too repetitive.
Madhani Malwattage was constrained by the script. It was
slow and the point made were convoluted.
She played her part well. Perhaps
she suffered from the fact that she made her appearance almost two hours after
the play started. There was too much
soliloquy by that time, perhaps.
Let’s talk about content. The title reminded me of one of
Udayasiri’s aarthika jokes, written
in the early part of this decade, translated thus: “Some people have cats as pets, some have parrots and some others have
rabbits; but all of us and not just ‘some people’ have a white man in our minds
as a pet.” I expected an anti-Colonial rant. I was disappointed. Instead I got a far more nuanced and
politically far more productive and smarter rendition of the post-colonial
challenge.
The points made threw one back to Dharmapala’s thesis, that
the weapons of the enemy should not be cursed, but secured and employed to good
effect. The issue of taking on
coloniality includes a firm resolution not to see things in black and white,
pardon the pun. There is always ‘good’ and ‘bad’, and Udayasiri speaks about
both, in ‘sudda’ and in ‘kalla’.
History is a bad word.
It looks too ‘singular’ when in fact it is plural, as in
‘histories’. Udayasiri makes some
excellent points on this aspect of the discipline/exercise. He also points out
that history is one of the least examined areas and observes that for this very
reason this is where we can find the most tasty morsels of ‘news’. It is an invitation to those who are ignorant
of history and a challenge to those who would rather not delve into the past,
especially because they are uncomfortable with the fact that they are not part
of the past or are too ‘recent’ to warrant the claims they tend to make.
The man who is in fear is me. It is you. I found this to be the philosophically most
satisfying of the 4 segments. The fear
is not about not being able to be honest, truthful and ‘above board’, but the
opposite, of telling the truth by mistake or by doing the right thing
accidentally. This is Udayasiri having
fun at our expense. He delves into that
secret place deep within us where we hide all the things we don’t want others
to know about. It is the ‘me’ of that
place that is scared, that speaks to myself my fears about tripping and
divulging that whose revelation would make things uncomfortable. It’s a reflection on the ‘final frontier’ of
a human being. It is too heavy for soliloquy though and was rushed through so
fast that it ended up just touching surface sensibilities and a crass reference
to the everyday politics of being rather than a serious exploration of a
serious element of the human condition.
The weakest was the address by a woman. Udayasiri makes the point that ‘gender’ is
not a synonym for ‘woman’ and lampoons the notion of ‘equality’ when difference
is a reality one cannot get around. It
is a light exploration of man-woman things.
He makes some sharp observations about things sexist and patriarchal,
but left me with the feeling that he was being lazy, that it was half-done and
thrown in to make up the numbers (pages, minutes or whatever).
All four, are books that are waiting to be written. Together
they constitute a play that needs to be worked on. Given format and the characters of playwright
and player, I am sure it will be done and will get better.
Overall, it is a fine effort and an introduction of a fresh format
to a genre that seems to have run out of new ideas. In terms of style, it can be improved, and I
am sure this will happen in subsequent productions. In terms of content, Udayasiri is only giving
us the tip of the iceberg. It is too
tempting not to explore. Speaking
strictly for myself, as a freelance writer, Udayasiri has given me a wealth of
material. That 2.5 hours at the Lumbini
was time very well spent.
'True love and true lovers celebrated' is a review of Udayasiri Wickramaratne’s latest play, 'චිත්රපටයකට සැබෑ පෙම් යුවලක් ඕනෑ කර තිබේ’ (‘Chitrapatayakata sabae pem yuvalak ona kara thibe’ or ‘True lovers needed for a film’)
Malinda Seneviratne is
the Editor-in-Chief of 'The Nation' and can be reached at msenevira@gmail.com. This review was first published in the Sunday Observer, April 18, 2010.
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