Rajitha Dissanayake and houses that are marked for buring

Review of Rajitha Dissanayake's 'Ape Gedara Gini Thiyaida (Will they burn our house down)'

 

 

Rajitha Dissanayake’s plays are very much like himself. A most unassuming playwright, Rajitha has ‘everyday’ written all over, almost to the point of not being noticed. 

Theatregoers, whether or not they have ‘everyday lives’ (who does not, anyway), are a select crowd. They go for entertainment and what they come off with depends on what they bring. Rajitha doesn’t disappoint.

There’s enough humour to prompt some laughs, relationship dilemma that makes one wonder if the playwright is a voyeuristic and secret miner of people’s private lives, enough ‘drama’ to keep the audience riveted, plot twists that pique curiosity, and social and political commentary for those who find such things interesting.

His latest, ‘Ape Gedara Gini Thiyaida (Will they burn our house down?),’ is no different.  Humour, romantic intrigue and political satire are delivered with deft brushstrokes of suspense and extremely clever criss-cross of dialogue. He makes the character indulge in soliloquy masqueraded as conversation even as he grapples with the contemporary political firmament and perennial philosophical questions such as truth, dimensions of loyalty, and the meanings of justice, crime and punishment.  

Rajitha, true to form, is minimalistic in set, word and movement. It’s all elegant nevertheless and speaks of accomplished craftsmanship. He does add to ‘stage life’ so to speak with music and song, none of which is intrusive but in fact integral to the plot. 

 

Four friends, classmates from an all girls’ school who were once in the same choir, meet after a long time. So there’s reminiscing that is worked into conversations that seem titled ‘Tell me about your life.’ Two are married, one divorced and one single. Their life trajectories have taken them to different shores in terms of profession and relationships, as is not uncommon. Deep down or, in fact, not too far from the surface of things, there are commonalities. There’s conviction and doubt, comfort zones and unease, and the inevitable interplay of emotion and reason, especially when the party is wrecked by an incident seemingly external and yet somehow containing enough of the ‘internal’ to bring to a halt the festivities.

Niroshi (played by Ama Wijesekara), Tharushi (Yasodha Rasanduni), Sujeewa (Jayani Senanayake) and Nayani (Bimsara Premaratne) all give good accounts of their acting capabilities. They no doubt found a convenient prop in well-crafted dialogue, but then again words alone are never enough to yield consistency in character portrayal. They were as good ‘in silence.’ 

They have men in their lives or wish there were. Men they have relationships with and men they can’t get out of their minds. And the men (there are four in all, three we see and the absent fourth the principal character, strangely and yet believably) gave excellent performances too. Vijith (played by Pradeep Aragama), Sunimal (Prasad Sooriyarachchi) and Heshan (Tharusha Kumarasinghe) are as authentic in the portrayal of, let’s say, ‘everyday people we know in our lives.’  

That’s also part of Rajitha’s genius. The characters, dialogue, plot-unfolding, never seems contrived. The magic is in the way he strings it all together to say something less said and make us think again of things we may have believed we had thought out, concluded and laid to rest.

Certain things of course are never really buried for good. The perennials referred to above, for example. They surface again and again in our lives or find residence in other lives, generation to generation. It’s the details and frills that change. Especially in politics, as the play tells us.  

‘Will our house be burnt down?’ Now that’s a question that directly takes us to the days of the ‘Aragalaya’ (the quotation marks are not for language but the claim — given the play of ‘orchestration’ in what was largely marked by spontaneity and of course the outcomes compared to desired result).

 

But what is this ‘house’? Is it an architectural form within which some human beings live or is it the structure of an individual's mind or is it a larger entity, a composite of individuals, families, relationships or even a social order or polity? Is that polity on fire? Is it made of arsonists (of a kind), considering social-media sparks that ignite much more than the curiosity and imagination of the consumer? Is Rajitha making his players ponder over the possibility of arson or is he making us ask the same question from ourselves or is he offering what could transpire in the future, distant or even not so far away? Who does the burning? A stranger, an acquaintance, a loved one or are we ourselves the arsonists?

There are the par-for-the-course tidbits of political satire. He seems to have deliberately set the play at a time before the last two major elections, throwing in claims and hopes of candidates, parties and voters which, naturally, force the audience to compare-and-contrast all of that with what we have. The laughs thus generated say something of the sentiments of the general polity.

Again, what struck me most was the less said and not-said-at-all. That’s the space in the theatrical canvas Rajitha has offered us to paint as we wish. Rajitha Dissanayake is never in-your-face. Neither is his work. And yet, he has this damning ability to crawl surreptitiously into heart and mind. He awakens those in slumber and those awake he does not allow to sleep again.