Art

Review:

Anganee (Market)

Artistic excellence from remnants of glory:

by Ranga Chandrarathne

The wind sweeps through the
ancient walls of Yodha Wewa
Whispers a secret the dwellers of
this historic city
that the signs are ripe that ruins
would destroy, sell Protect them.

The evocative theme song runs against the backdrop of ruins in the historic city of Anuradhapura, sums up the crust of the story of Angani, the pervasive market. It is the market which prices everything, every item both inanimate and animate.

It devours everything from gold to ancient archaeological artifacts. The story revolves around many actors, power politics, treasure hunters and public-spirited group of youth to protect national heritage for posterity.

Although the story is about a rise and fall of a treasure hunter, its dramatic ending suggest that one racketeer will, eventually, be replaced by another and the vicious circle will continue, devouring archaeological artifacts.

The core message of the story is that it is only through the strengthening of the civil society, at micro level, that could save priceless archaeological artifacts and remnants of the proud history of the nation. The story starts with the arrival of Seeladasa, an unemployed villager and Suboda who works at archaeological excavation site following the temporary closure of the university.

As a son of the soil, Suboda loves archaeological sites and the historic city of Anuradhapura, not as a student of archaeology.

Suboda is in love with Chetana, daughter of multi-millionaire Dissanayake and his wife Sriyani. However, with the help of the village MP and the goons, Dissanayake carries out treasure hunting and archaeological artifact pirating, although he maintains good relationship with the villagers and the chief incumbent of the village temple while keeping even his daughter in darkness on illegal activities.

Knowing well that the love affair between his daughter and Suboda will hamper his business, he with Sriyani goes to an exorcist to spell a charm to put an end to the affair. However, the charm ends with Sriyani becoming mentally ill.

Meanwhile Suboda and friends form an organization to protect national heritage and holds a mass meeting at the village temple. The MP together with Dissanayake arrives at the temple and praised the organization's attempt to protect national heritage. He offers Suboda a sum of Rs. 100,000,00 as a token of appreciation.

However, Suboda rejects the money stating that the organisation does not need financial support and hands over the cheque to the MP. Infuriated MP and Dissanayake leave the meeting. In another development, an innocent village lad Jatiya disappears.

Jatiya has been detained by Dissanayake and his goons as he knew about the racket. They detain Jatiya until the next treasure hunt at Galpalama.

Suboda is arrested by the police in possession of archaeological artifact which was presented to him by his girl friend Chetana. Dissanayake presented the artifact stating that it was a worthless piece of artifact given to him by his friend.

Dissanayake is caught red handed in a hotel room when he tries to sell archaeological artifacts to a CID officer impersonating a multi-millionaire businessman. Angani ends with a warning that though Dissanayake is no more in the business, the treasure pirating will continue.

Angani also exposes ugly nexus between politicians and racketeers and how politicians leave racketeers at large when they were caught red handed by the law enforcing authorities, in order to safeguard their political career.

Script-writer and Director Suranga Lakmal Seneviratne, has highlighted the blight of treasure hunters who plundered the archaeological sites, in their insatiable quest for inestimable artifacts.

Once the sleepy villages which never attracted visitors, had suddenly turned into a beehive of activities as the treasure hunters launched their operation that did not even spare sacred statues of Buddha in ancient temples.

One of the special features of the tele-drama is that provincial talents were given pride of place, instead of exploiting them for location hunting by Colombo-based artists. The talented actors/actresses from Vanni Wedikhava (Vanni stage), a group of award winning theatre personalities, were cast for four to five characters, for the first time in a tele-play.

Suranga has incorporated his life experiences into the tele-play as he was born and bred in the ancient city of Anuradhapura. Deserving Sri Lankan audience could embark on a journey of discovery through the ruined city of Anuradhapura. It will be a journey of soul searching into collective conscience and the vanishing heritage in priceless archaeological artifacts.

Saman Samarawickrama, the editor of Angani, has deviated from the common practice of cutting and patching and instead, he has devised a unique format with a highly evolved narrative style. The protagonist in the tele-drama is the power-play and the market forces that devour everything as a black hole. The entire tele-play was shot at locations in the archaeological sites of Anuradhapura.

Star studded cast include Suminda Sirisena, Gamini Samarakoon, Jayani Senanayake, Rebecca Nirmali, Sumith Ratnayake, Medha Jayaratne, Rukmal Niroshan, Gunadasa Madurasinghe, Felix Anton and Janapriya Jayasinghe.

Music for the tele-play is directed by Gayan Ganakadhara which is well matched with the tempo and the theme of the tele-play. Janapriya Jayasinghe, a man of many parts, a scrip-writer has proved that he can fit into a complex role although Angani marks his entry into the field. As a Buddhist monk, he played his role well except he has to improve in the areas of dialogue delivery.

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