GCE A/L English Literature - Made Easy - Drama:

The education of Miss Asia

ACT I

Act I opens with a sitting room of an expensive flat in the best Residential area in Colombo. The occupants seem to be bestowed with luxury recently. Marlene Perera recently victorious as Miss Asia, the centre of attraction and attention sitting in a "plush chair" grandly dressed.

A gentleman with a camera arrives, from the press. Hector, Marlene's father offers him rich drinks displaying his anxiety to show off, highlighting his weak personality.

Violet, Hector's wife is a dominating character in the scene. Marlene is terribly nervous and excited. Not beauty alone but "sensitivity to life that counted much."

Giving marks for latent sensitivity" and the new style competition 50% marks given to sensitivity and the education given by the wrong type of teacher, sensitivity could be "dulled and killed".

The press reporter gets information about Marlene's schooling, special talent etc. Getting down Chaudribhoy as the efficient tutor for Marlene a really brilliant person, though somewhat eccentric as "all brilliant professors are." Hector comments Ranjit's position as an unemployed proctor. Even Chaudribhoy shows his disgust.

Yet Ranjit reveals the real character of Hector, how he served a sentence of two years at Welikada Prison for cheating and corruption. The end of Act I is the beginning of "The Education of Miss Asia"!

ACT 2

The rehearsal of Marlene's interview is being conducted by Chaudribhoy, posing as a Professor giving prominence to sensitivity, population political division, languages.

Elevation of Sitar Music the vibration of the strings, melodiously shining above the harsh music of the piano keyboard. Referring to Asia as the "Cradle of the Human Race."

Special mention of "starvation, malnutrition and illiteracy on such a scale." The Professor Chaudribhoy converting Marlene into an obedient believer of Chaudribhoy's philosophy, agrees to get her father to write out cheques on behalf of the suffering children for the 'Famine Fund.' Flood victims.

There's pun on the word when Hector says 'financial crisis.' This scene ends with Chaudribhoy and Marlene singing a song from Tagore's Gitanjali to the tune of "Sa-ri-ga-ma-pa-da-ni."

In Act 2 Marlene's first lesson is structured as two parts. Firstly, Marlene repeats the speech for the London Contest written for her by Chaudribhoy who comments on "various issues and implications to the enlightenment of both Marlene and the audience."

McIntyre has used Chaudribhoy's speech prepared for Marlene to rouse the sensitivity of the audience of the several "realities of Asia," how the population increases at a terrific rate while the food production is only increasing in "arithmetic proportions" which would impress the judges.

"The coaching session for a Beauty Contest finally becomes the ultimate turn out of the real education of a real person," "though of course the comic touches and comic phrases do remind the audience" that they are in the theatre watching a drama, as Marlene, singing and moving close to Chaudribhoy, looking directly into his face.

"Pluck this little flower,
take it, delay not,
I fear...
Lest it droop and fall
into the dust."

ACT 3

This scene begins after forty five days of course with a different effect with the austere beauty of "a Shanthinikethan kind". Discussion continues with Violet, Hector, Oliver and Ranjit. Marlene's fiance Ranjit facing a serious situation - attitude of Marlene towards Ranjit and Marlene seems to be "infatuated" with Chaudribhoy. Marlene is radically changed with the effect of Chaudribhoy's coaching.

"From the very first moment you stirred my soul for Asia all the babies who were dying..."

Marlene showing her disgust towards her father's conclusion of the servant girl's mentality. "This idiot of girl always dropping these valuable books..."

Marlene: "Daddy swine are those that exploited her illiteracy to reduce her to a domestic slave" Marlene unfolds her love for Chaudribhoy

"There's always the comic in the tragic and the tragic in the comic" (Chaudribhoy's remarks).

In "The Education of Miss Asia" "novel conditions" are enthralled into the Beauty Contest and the strange and peculiar behaviour pattern of Chaudribhoy and through his character McIntyre has highlighted the false values of western behaviour pattern that existed in the middle class society of the Sri Lankans.

Being rich with episodes and emphasis on the artificially modernized category of Sri Lankan middle class Society McIntyre has successfully presented his comedy to the audiences of Sri Lanka. His flexible diction style accustomed to McIntyre himself symbolically inculcates in the mind and attitude of the theatre goers of the Sri Lankan English speaking middle class society.

Mrs. C. Ekanayake,
Retd. Specialist Teacher
Eng.,
St. Anne's College,
Kurunegala.