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| Sunday, 25 April 2004 |
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Greed : A mime for our time Monday night, the 19th of April, saw the play Greed presented by the Clod Ensemble from the UK, in the British Council. Directed by Suzy Wilson with an original score for piano by Paul Clark. Greed is a romantic comedy starring Jason Thorpe and Sarah Cameron with the piano played live by John Paul Grandy.
After a somewhat slow start, the pace picked up, the action non stop, at times farcical, at times melodramatically tragic, then ridiculous, next violent and in a certain sense on the brink of madness. The live piano music, was not just a part of the background, but as much a part of the play as its two characters were, giving voice to their mime, depicting moods of love, lust, surprise, violence, anger, fear, jealousy and regret. The music was character in itself giving life to emotions, actions and even the tip tap sounds of the knocking of a door, the ring of the telephone and the constant tapping of feet on the move. As for the theme of the play as can be guessed from its title is greed. Greed for lust in love, money in success, blood in the battlefield, power in life. "Our simple hero" and his "Simple young wife" brought this out in frightening reality. Business ethics was another aspect touched by the play and this was shown in the form of dentistry. The enthusiastic beginner soon turning out into the ruthless so called professional. I wouldn't recommend going to a the dentist for quite a while, after having seen the play, which is as follows: A dentist and his beautiful young wife are rescued from a life of poverty when they inadvertently discover a miracle mouthwash which promises perfect white teeth for life. The product is a nationwide hit and the young lovers soon become fabulously wealthy. But life is hard, and dentistry is not much easier. As their business blossoms, holes begin to appear in their relationship, their business ethics and their teeth... A romantic comedy, inspired by the silent movie era of 1920s and the slapstick of Keaton and Chaplin. Two skilful young actors mime the melodramatic rise and fall of a dentist and his wife. Without any words, the action unravels, including moments of slapstick, pathos and sideways observations about the ethics of business and business relationships. Subtitles projected onto a screen and melodramatic music tug at the emotions in a gentle, ironic way. Greed premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2003. The Clod Ensemble having toured Kandy will perform in Jaffna on Sunday the 25th of April at the Navalar Hall and in Colombo on Wednesday the 28th of April at the Lionel Wendt. They are also in the process of holding workshops in each of the three places (Colombo-British Council) which have been fully booked up. The Clod Ensemble founded by director Suzy Willson and composer Paul Clark, combines live music with highly visual theatre. The company has performed at venues and festivals such as the Purcell Room, The Royal Opera House, The Victoria and Albert Museum, La Mama New York, The International Mime Festival (Arizona), Performance Studies International 2000 and the British Festival of Visual Theatre. The Clod Ensemble's work does not rely on spoken text-some of its pieces have had no words at all. Its work is instead characterised by rich, powerful visual imagery, delicately crafted by Lecoq trained director Suzy Willson and performed by a company of superb physical actors. Each of the Clod Ensemble's productions is set to an original score by award-winning composer Paul Clark, played live by a group of first rate classical musicians. Paul's music is a truly integral part of each production-it acts almost as a "text" in itself. Clod Ensemble's productions include: The Feast During The Plague, The Metamorphoses, Lady Grey, The Silver Swan, Double Agency, Kiss My Echo and Greed. Their tour in Sri Lanka is being sponsored by the British Council and co-sponsored by Channel 1 MTV, Yes FM, Classic Radio, Shakti FM, The Colombo Plaza and SriLankan Airlines. -FMM *************** Viva La Musica : Seventy voices in harmony It was pure delight to listen to the two choirs - the Jubilate Choir and the Peradeniya Singers at the E.O.E. Pereira Theatre of the Engineering Faculty, University of Peradeniya, on March 20 at 6.30 pm. The Kandy Music Society in association with the University Arts Council presented this choral concert.
The theatre was transformed by the magnificent singing which filled the hall. The occasion was a rare and unique one, and that very special experience will remain until the remembered echoes die away in the heart, mind and spirit of the audience. It was an experience which purified and purged the listener of negative emotions and the grosser choleric and phlegmatic of the Elizabethan concept of Humours. The Jubilate choir from Victoria, Australia had come to Sri Lanka for the first time after successful tours in the Netherlands where many of the members including the Sri Lankan/Australian Dutch Burghers had gone on a kind of nostalgic, sentimental pilgrimage as be noted by a preponderance of Dutch names. Music and song were to provide the links and connections to a past heritage and inheritance deriving from those Dutch forebears. The colonial experience of conquest and the more recent experience of migration were perhaps transformed into an alternate, spiritual experience through the religious hymns and choral music. The exceptional and fervently inspired leader of the Jubilate choir was Crosbie De Kretser who had his roots in this island. It was wonderful to have him with us together with the other Dutch Burghers whose forefathers had their beginnings here, too. One could not but admire the steadfastness, the stamina and the harmonious and full-throated singing of a choir in a different climate. Perhaps they were following the adaptability of their colonial ancestors! There were many familiar hymns that are still sung in our traditional church worship but at the same time, the arrangements were innovative and distinctive. One observes that C. De Kretser, M. Visser and L. Poppenbeck hand arranged "How deep The Father's Love" in a beautifully moving and innovative manner. We in Kandy, are greatly privileged to have Bridget Halpe as well as Ashley Halpe with us. They have enriched the lives of the true music lover with the pristine purity of their choice of classical song and choral arrangements. The Peradeniya Singers conducted by Bridget Halpe numbered thirty-five at the concert. The choir has a long tradition beginning in 1953 when Robin Mayhead formed the group of singers who sang everything from Palestrina to Purcell. Ashley Halpe still sings as he did in those days gone by. Two concerts are given every year regularly besides the choir participating in very special events like the "Seventy Voices In Harmony" and the occasion of the reopening of the restored Central Bank building in Fort (a highly significant and greatly historical event). The Peradeniya Singers have their Jubilee Concert of 2003 at the Lionel Wendt on CD. One certainly felt a great sense of pride in the perfection of those voices in the choir, so beautifully disciplined, so harmonious, so full of a reverential sense of life. Bridget Halpe's sensitivity, understanding and great knowledge of music, composers and period, together with her exploration of the potential of the human voice have all combined to produce a choir such as the Peradeniya Singers. Moreover, the choir is unique in its great range of members from the very young to those of vintage years. Both the Jubilate Choir and the Peradeniya Singers, although they came from different cultures and countries, gave us a wonderfully moving experience when they combined to sing together in the Negro Spiritual Steal Away, in a setting of words from Martin Luther King's great speech I Have a Dream and in King All Glorious. The choirs were fortunate in having very sensitive accompanists - the Jubilate Choir had Ishbelle Poppenbeck (organ/keyboard) and Marten Visser (piano/keyboard) while the Peradeniya Singers had Hasinee Halpe Andree (violin), Roger Halliday (guitar) and Dhanushya Amaratunga (piano). Michiko Herat sang a solo in her delicate and memorable soprano while Lorensz Stork (tenor solo) was in excellent voice. All in all it was a wonderful experience. A memorable one. The Peradeniya Singers presented a very wide range of music which required much delicacy and harmony, from Palestrina's O Bone Jesu to Mozart's Laudate Dominum, with rare and unusual renderings of A Gaelic Blessing (John Rutter), Adijo Kerida (Sephardic folksong in a setting by Joshua Jacobson) and Viva La Musica (Ivan Erod's Op 43). In a world where discordant and conflicting argument and voices aggressively hammer at the skull it was a spiritually enlightening experience to give oneself to a world in which harmony reigned supreme. Bridget Halpe, Crosbie de Kretser, each and every member of the choirs, the accompanists and the organizers, the Kandy Music Society, deserve our heartfelt thanks. - Jean Arasanayagam, Kandy. |
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The lights out, the 45 minute to an hour on the go play, was presented
in monochrome black and white, capturing an era long gone by. The slap
stick mime films of the 1920s. The storyline however is universal,
relating to any place in any period of time, including today. The war
declared for "God, civilisation and mineral resources" certainly
sounded familiar.
