Ravindra Randeniya:

"Acting is serious business"
 

by Ranga Chandrarathne

In retrospect, Ravindra Randeniya who played diverse roles in Sinhala cinema is quite contended with the way in which he spent his childhood and adolescence. He attributes his phenomenal success in the silver screen and small screen to the uncompromising commitment, in-depth study of characters, as well as a little bit of luck. As he fondly called himself, the black sheep in his family circles, as he was a mischievous child. He entered the field of cinema, that none of his relations have ever ventured into. Extremely mischievous

Though he was extremely mischievous as a child, he developed a great liking towards reading. When the other children of his age read romances and trash, Ravindra as early as eight and nine years, started to read works of great Sinhala literati such as, Martin Wickremesinghe, Prof. Ediriweera Sarachandra, Munidasa Kumaratunge, and Wimalarathne Kumaragama. However, Ravindra could not recall at which stage he cultivated this partiality towards literature.

These early readings had influenced Ravindra and contributed to evolve his own outlook on society at large. At a tender age, Ravindra appreciated nature.

The lovely sunset over the skies of the pristine village of Dalugama, unlike today, was surrounded by schools of paddyfields. Young Ravindra used to walk along a gravel road to St. Francis School in Dalugama. Sapugaskanda, where Ravindra's mother was born, was also the bucolic village with lush paddyfields, trickles and streams. Ravindra used to spend unaccompanied evenings watching paddyfields and appreciating and enjoying booming Mother Nature.

Though he was a brilliant student, Ravindra could not perform well at the A/L examination due to certain problems. For some time he lost interest in all activities.

After this interregnum, he joined his family business of manufacturing hardware items. Soon, Ravindra found ample time in his hands after office work, and as a youth of his generation, he too started to correlate theatre.

Ravindra was so immersed in the theatre that he coveted to contribute to the Sri Lankan Fine Arts. It was the time that the Lionel Wendt theatre workshop was inaugurated.

The legendary Dr. Sarachandra, Damma Jagoda and other leading dramatists of the day conducted the workshop. Damma Jagoda was the director of the institute where pioneer dramatists like Dr.Sarachandra, Gunasena Gallappathi, Ernest MacIntyre , Percy Colinthus, and Irangani Serasinghe indoctrinated the students.

Ravindra enrolled as a scholar in one of the programmes in theatre decor and scriptwriting, and not for acting as most of us would think. It was by coincidence that Ravindra got himself into acting.

The students who followed various courses at the Lionel Wendt Theatre Workshop had to attend a general class on acting, and Damma Jagoda used to pick up Ravindra from the rest of the scholars to lay bare a point during the lessons.

It so happened that progressively Ravindra's studies shifted towards acting and on completion of the course that lasted for two years, students presented the first theatre workshop production.

In this maiden production, Ravindra played the main role, "Mudu Puttu", the students' production directed by Gunasena Gallapaththi. After the performance, Dr. Lester James Peris congratulated Ravindra. Perhaps, Ravindra would not have reflected that this would be the lash out of his career in Cinema. It was also here, that Ravindra met another important figure in the Art, Manique Sandarasagara. Later Manique offered Ravindra the second lead role in his film, "Kalu Diya Dahara".

"Kalu Diya Dahara" a watershed in the annals of Sinhala films, deals with a struggle between workers and administration in a tea plantation. It was screened in 1971. Ravindra made his debut on the silver screen in 1974.

This was by and large due to the surfeit of films awaited to be screened. One of the astonishing juncture in Ravindra's career was that he had been selected to play a lead role in a film directed by Dr.Lester James Peris. Ravindra signed the contract for the film "Desanisa". The film revolves around three characters portrayed by Joe Abeywickrema, Shriyani Amerasena and Ravindra Randeniya.

Limelight

Ravindra evokes that the selection of him for a film directed by Dr. Lester James Peris at that stage of his career, fetched him to the limelight. Since then, Ravindra has been portraying sundry roles, and is a matured actor who could meet any challenge in the silver screen.

Ravindra is of the opinion that acting as a profession is a very serious task, a fact that he realised at a very preliminary stage of his career. This made Ravindra to consign himself wholly to acting.

The other important factor which contributed to his career, as Ravindra states, was the opportunity to rub shoulders with veterans in the industry, such as, Dr. Lester James Peris, Joe Abeywickrema and Sumitta Amerasinghe, one of the talented cameramen of the day.

"I had the occasion to play different roles right from the beginning of my career," said Ravindra. For his first few films, Ravindra had the atypical break of playing assorted characters, an assistant Superintendent in an estate in "Kalu Diya Dahara", true lover who fights against odds in "Tharanga", an elderly man, a character of a hermit in Dr. Lester James Peris's film "Desanisa", Marusira in "Siripala and Ranmanika", avant-garde lover in "Duhulu Malak" by Wijaya Dharmasri and national hero in "Puran Appu".

Ravindra reminisced this as a fluky factor that prevented him from being restrained to archetype roles and identified him with characters he portrayed in the silver screen.

Sometimes, Ravindra had the opportunity of playing entirely converse characters, consecutively hero and villain; Chandran Ratnam's film "Janelaya" and in "Dadayama" where Ravindra played one of the most villainous characters in the Sinhala cinema. Ravindra won many awards for the role.

Among the excellent roles that he played was the character of a crippled in "Sirimadura" for which Ravindra won the best actor's award. It was rather a difficult role, as the character does not talk or make any movements, though in veracity he could speak.

At the beginning, the character is shown as an active playboy-type person. He is also reminiscent that the character he played in "Janelaya" which was also a silent character. At one time of the film, the director introduced a line to establish that the character can actually talk, but maintains silence.

However, after the shooting, that line was removed, as the director thought that line was not necessary as Ravindra implied it.

When he was told that I saw his best performance as an actor in the controversial film "Aksharaya" by Ashoka Handagama, he conceded it with much exuberance. Ravindra said that the most challenging role that he played recently was the role of the retired High Court Judge in "Aksharaya" (Letter of fire).

He considers the character of the judge in Aksharaya was a different character, whose conscience is severely weighed down by a guilty consciousness. He has become the victim of circumstances and inadvertently, he married his own daughter and she bore a child. Being a High Court judge, and descendent of a lineage of judges, the challenge that he faces is to live with it. He resigns from the post and leads an isolated life, completely cut off from society.

This became extremely difficult, as there were no confrontations or dialogues. "So that was a great challenge and I thought that was one of the most formidable challenges that I have been confronted with, in portraying a character in a film." said Ravindra.

Commenting on the problems faced by the industry, Ravindra says he was flabbergasted by the naive argument presented by a person who is not even connected with the Art, that the film "Aksharaya" is not suitable for an adult audience. "Can anyone say that two hours experience in a theatre can green them morally? "queried Ravindra.

He questions the cogent, that one film could corrupt the minds of entire adults in the nation. Ravindra says that the people should be allowed to watch the film. Being a politician and an artiste, he denounced the politicians' trying to interfere in deciding on the boundaries of a work of art. Referring to the ban on "Da Vinci Code", Ravindra said that it was banned well ahead of it being imported to the country. In the face of technological advancement, the ban became useless, as, by now, people had watched the film.

He does not regret the three years spent as a politician, as he assembled knowledge and experience, though he could not devote time for his beloved profession and was bankrupt due to a lack of income. He had to sacrifice most of what he had earned from the career during that period; on the other hand, he found interesting work, hand in hand with the common man. He is contended with his recoup into his cherished profession.

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