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| Sunday, 6 July 2003 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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The work of Nalini Jayasuriya : A feast for the soul by KAREL ROBERTS RATNAWEERA
Nalini Jayasuriya returned home recently from two academic years at her old university, Yale, of which she is a graduate. She was away from September 2001 to May of this year. One of Sri Lanka's most famous contemporary artists, Nalini's artistic talents have ranged from pottery - in the early years in the sixties - to painting,music and writing. She taught for several years at S. Thomas' College, Mt. Lavinia, she always says, 'through the grace and kindness of 'that great Warden, Canon R.S. de Saram.' Among her students are many well-known, indeed famous Sri Lankans in public life and a wide canvas of fields who hold her in great respect and admiration. Nalini says that it was during this very difficult period that she got a break that changed her whole life forever. 'The British Council offered me - unsolicited - a grant to study in Great Britain. The time I spent there was a discovering of wonder, of knowledge, of creative search and understanding that was a renewal of my life.' In Israel in the early sixties she lectured in art-history at the University of Haifa. Nalini Jayasuriya was named Luce Moore Professor, and taught graduating seniors at four Asian universities and at the University of Copenhagen.She has held exhibitions in several of the world's capitals.' It always remains a wonder to me that people appear to appreciate my work. Yes, it is difficult possibly because I have never been to an art class in my life!' I paint and write because these compel me.It is my witness to who I am - if I can begin to understand that,' she says. Nalini was awarded a two-year Fellowship to work on two books by the US Overseas Study Centre. Explaining, she said :'One is a collection of 25 of my paintings with very short reflections on each with a well-known American writer who has written an essay on my work.' This book is being published in New York under the direction of Dr. Bill Burrows,Publishing Editor, and is entitled Witness. The other book is a collection of Ms. Jayasuriya's Memoirs and will relate some of the difficulties she encountered, the struggles and hardships and, she adds -' the extraordinary miracles in my life. 'She says it is an account of family and extraordinary friends, many of them from the Western world and Japan who gave her unexpected opportunities she says,' to grow and express myself in new and surprising ways. 'This book that I have called A Time of my Singing is a tribute to many, and very specially to that very great and noble Warden of S. Thomas' College, Mt. Lavinia, Canon R.S. de Saram whose help, unasked for, was a gift that was invaluable and opportune.' Nalini Jayasuriya has asked Dr. Jonathan Bonk - and Dr. Burrows - to set up a fund with all the revenue that will result from the sale of these two books to enable young Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim and Burgher men and women from Sri Lanka, to spend a year of study and research at the Overseas Study Centre. 'It will be my gift to them and my own reward for the enriching time I was privileged to spend there from 2001 to 2003.' This writer recalls the time Nalini Jayasuriya first began her work in pottery in the sixties. She had her own kiln at home and designed and made pottery that had a stamp of its own, both glazed and unglazed. She was not influenced by popular trends of the day which were predictably crude and 'inspired' by Victorian designs of a past generation. Her enamel work was also creative and original, lots of it reflecting early Christian iconic traditions. In Germany, Nalini Jayasuriya studied the art of stained glass under a reputed teacher; she is one of very few Sri Lankans who have studied this ancient art and even created her own 'windows' which may be seen in some places of religious worship in the West. A deeply spiritual individual, this artist's work would seem to be inspired by more than one religious tradition. This writer well remembers an exhibition a few years ago of paintings in which Christian and Buddhist themes blended with ancient Central Asian cultural facets creating a prismatic effect that was mesmeric. Opening her academic visit to Yale in September 2002, an exhibition of Ms. Jayasuriya's paintings entitled 'Spiritual Visions From Sri Lanka' was held at an opening reception to her at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music.
In a rich tribute to her work, Executive Director of OMCS in New Haven, affiliated to Yale University, Dr. Jonathan Bonk, wrote: 'The art on display can only hint at the rich and variegated life of its extraordinary creator.' He writes: 'Through her paintings, Nalini offers us: colour without garishness; spirituality without vacuity; and invitation without coercion. Her art is profound in its simplicity; disarmingly direct in its subtlety, dynamic in its uncluttered clarity;movingly evocative in its serenity. Dr. Bonks continues: 'In short, her art is a feast for the soul - a kind of spiritual retreat - and we come away having thought about the 'whatsoever things' to which St. Paul alludes in Philippians 4:8 - 9: true things, honourable things, just things, pure things, pleasing things, commendable things,excellent thing, things that are worthy of praise. And - true to the promise of St. Paul - we receive their benediction, newly aware that the God of peace is with us.' In recognition of her contribution to art and culture in Sri Lanka,
Nalini Jayasuriya had the title of Kalakirti bestowed on her by President
Chandrika Kumaratunga in 1998. Woyzeck - A modern tragic hero by NEOMI KODIKARA
The character of Woyzeck is one feature that interested me profoundly in the Sinhala dramaturgy of Georg Buchner's Woyzeck. What made him kill his girlfriend, highly attractive Marie, whom he loved dearly? Answers to this question, reflect on many facets of a society, torn by war; its post-war trauma, human values, medical ethics, love and death. Trauma, horror and terror of war do not fade away with the end of battles. They linger on in the minds of war victims however much they try to shake them off, perhaps until they die. Such was the story of Woyzeck, a soldier who tries to cope with the post-war trauma, but ultimately succumbed to mental agonies. According to the Director, Dr. Asoka de Zoysa, a lecturer of the Modern Languages Department of the University of Kelaniya, the plot of Buchner's Woyzeck is based on an actual story of a barber called Woyzeck, who killed his beloved and was sentenced to death in 1824. The death sentence was highly criticised and after a long winded case, he was pardoned posthumously as the doctors were able to prove he was not of sound mind. In the drama Woyzeck is an all-purpose servant of a German captain. The captain considers him amoral and foolish, largely because he is poor and uneducated. Woyzeck also makes money by allowing the doctor to experiment on him. He has eaten nothing but peas in order to prove some unstated scientific premise. He is unable to relate to his girl any more, who gave birth to his child. He nevertheless loves her very much and does not want to lose her at any cost. Faithfully he gives her all the money he earns, even the pocket money he gets from the doctor. Woyzeck hears sounds and is a victim of persecution mania. He tries to cover his inability to show any emotional attachment to Marie and child by his constant urge to earn money to support them. This gives him an excuse to avoid their company. The drum major who is the champion of the battalion, takes advantage of this situation and seduces Marie. Woyzeck discovers Marie is having an affair with the drum major. He brings Marie to the side of a pond and slits her throat. The play focuses on the oppression and violence within a highly stratified and regimentalized subculture. In any militarised society, a soldier is always considered a hero and the power attached to the uniform places him not only on a high pedestal, but makes him a kind of sex symbol, which leads to quick romances and makeshift marriages. Woyzeck, I see as a modern tragic hero, dwarfed by the vastness of events beyond an individual's control and sacrificed to powers larger than himself. The play we know today as Woyzeck began as a drawful of fragments left by a brilliant 22-year old playwright who died of typhus in 1836, Buchner who is known in the history of European Theatre as one of the first revolutionary writers to portray the common man in his social environment. Woyzeck written in the last years of his short life, was never performed or published till the manuscript was rediscovered and performed in 1913 as an Expressionist drama. Today Woyzeck is considered a modernist classic, posing an intriguing challenge for every director who approaches it. Each production must interpret and arrange the pieces according to its own vision. Dr. Zoysa says that he produced it in Sinhala to promote a dialogue on demilitarization and post-war trauma. "Post-war trauma is a sphere we have forgotten with the dawn of the warm and bright rays of peace," he says pointing out the assortment of war victims; wounded, displaced, war widows and orphans and war brides in border villages whose future is bleak. Woyzeck has used techniques of improvisational theatre, which made possible props and stage craft minimum. The cast consists of well-known artistes as well as students of Dr. Zoysa's Improvisation Theatre workshop. While Hemantha Prasad plays as Woyzeck, Yamuna Kumari as Marie, Udeni Alwis as drum major and M. Safer takes on the role of the doctor, a main group act as the Chorus of the play, defining the theatre space of each scene by their presence on stage and by their movements. Acting on the whole was convincing and true to their characters but verbosity sometimes detracted from the flow and rhythm of the play. The play goes on the boards at John de Silva theatre on July 7. |
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