For the youth, of the youth and by the youth

Colombo Theatre Festival for Young Audience:

by Ranga Chandrarathne

Somalatha Subasinghe

Kaushalya Fernando

A unique theatre festival dedicated to youth theatre in Sri Lanka will be held from 9-11 August at Lionel Wendt theatre. One of the fascinating features of the festival is that the festival is being conducted by the Lanka Children's and Youth Theatre Foundation, a voluntary organization set up by veteran theatre personality Somalatha Subasinghe under the theme of Theatre for Education and Reconciliation.

After 25 years of dedicated effort to promote theatre for children and youth in Sri Lanka, LCYTF was incorporated in the Parliament of Sri Lanka under Act No. 3 of 2007 which enables the institution to take its theatrical activities even to greater heights.

The festival will provide a much-needed independent platform for young theatre directors to showcase their talents in the craft. The selection of the plays were done purely on the basis of merit and the creativity of the productions in order to present 'true' talented directors and theatre personalities, particularly in youth and mainstream theatre in Sri Lanka.

Chamila Peiris and Lakmini Seneviratne in Sanda Langa Maranaya

A scene from Vikurthi

The festival makes up of awards winning dramas with deep-insights into the socio-cultural issues and lined up plays for the festival are 'Vikurthi' by Somalatha Subasinghe, 'Sanda Langa Maranaya' (blood wedding) by Kaushalya Fernando, 'Asinamali' by Pujitha de Mel and 'Me Heeneta Namak Denna' (Name This Dream) by Priyanth Kaluaarachchi. All the productions have won national awards.

Youth Theatre Festival is a part of the 25th Anniversary Celebrations of Lanka Children's and Youth Theatre Foundation (LCYTF) or popularly known as Play House-Kotte established in 1981 by Somalatha Subasinghe, veteran playwright and theatre personality.

Over the years LYCTF has produced a repertoire of internationally acclaimed musical theatre for children and youth and award winning mainstream theatre productions. Vikurthi (Distortion) is a play by Somalatha Subasinghe, a satirical exposure of hapless generation of youth whose lives were dominated by incessant struggle between the parents' aspirations and youth's abilities.

Especially in the 1980's, at the time the drama was conceived, a social blight was spread when aspiring parents tried to achieve their failed life objective through their children.

Children were forced to study for competitive examinations such as GCE (O/L) and GCE (A/L), especially in Science Stream disregarding the children's aptitudes and available resources at respective schools.

As a teacher of Economics, Somalatha observed this phenomenon of forced tuition at the expense of other important youth activities such as sports, extra-curricular activities like drama and theatre. This social blight is amply manifested by the theme song of the drama.

The Children were under stress to achieve aims and objectives set up by their parents. This inhuman process has denied youth of a life, there is no social space for visiting friends, relatives as the child is studying the same subjects in the evening, in some extreme cases, attending four classes for the same subject.

'Vibage Vbage, Ehe Baluvath Vibage, Mehe Baluvath Vibage, Vibage Thamai Ape Abage' Vihiluvakata, Hinavakata, Vinodekata Vena Vedakata ne velawa Vibage' Baseke Kochchiye Parathote, Yanaena Hemathena, Kohomada Prathipala...Vibhaga Prathipala Wasangathe.

Pujitha de Mel

Priyantha Kaluarachchi

It has been an examination fever, child has absolutely no time for visiting relations, even cracking a joke and playing neighbours who are also caught up in this rat race, inquire from the children of their 'results' of the examinations, everywhere even at bust stop and in the train.

The preferred stream was science and if failed in commerce the children were given step motherly treatment. Parents preferred their children to fail having studied in the Science Stream rather than 'A' passes in the Art Stream.

'Asinamall', a South African drama adapted to Sinhala by Pujitha de Mel has relevance to contemporary post-colonial world. Mbongeni Ngema's Asinamali, literary translated as a political slogan 'Nothing to Lose' which has a history associated with the South African struggle against Apartheid. One of the salient characteristics of Ngema's plays is the multiple roles played by minimum number of actors against a singular setting on the stage, a technique similar to those in Woza Albert.

A scene from Me Heeneta Namak denna

A scene from Asinamali

The story of the play revolves around a union of five prisoners from diverse parts of South Africa. They are incarcerated at Leeuwkop Prison zealously guarded by Afrikaana-speaking police. Within the confines of the prison, the audience is taken to far flung hamlets of South Africa where the incarcerated prisoners relate their experiences, their former lives, political ideology, mentors and their crimes.

Though the prisoners are not saints, petty thieves and sexists and active participants in political violence, they are more or less prisoners of a vicious system. The protagonist of the play is the vicious apartheid regime which kept South Africans as second class citizens in their land of birth.

Me Heeneta Namal Denna (Name This Dream) is a play by Priyanth Kaluaarachchi. The story revolves around a young producer Damma who loved his profession very much. However, unexpected transfer of Damma to a bottle manufacturing plant of the group of companies who owns the Television channel turned his world upside down.

He tries to commit suicide but started to live between reality and fantasy. He is visited by his hopes and life goals in the dream world and ultimately Damma tries to understand life and death.

Kaushalya Fernando's 'Sanda Langa Maranaya', is the Sinhalese version of blood Wedding. Blood Wedding is, one of the famous trilogies based on Spanish society by Federico Garcia Lorca. The playwright wrote the drama in response to a newspaper article about a local murder in rural Spain. Garcia Lorca is considered as one of the most poetic Spanish playwrights and outstanding playwrights of the 20th century.

The story revolves around a passionate triangular love affair among a bridegroom, a married man and a young bride. The drama explores the universal themes such as extremism, intolerance and flexibility which are a recurrent theme relevant to contemporary society.

The theatre festival is poised to make a qualitative contribution to Sri Lankan theatre, particularly to youth theatre. The high quality dramas lined up for the festival will fulfill a long-felt need in the arena of theatre in Sri Lanka besides creating a platform for playwrights specialising in youth theatre.

One of the primary aims of the Youth Drama Festival is to raise the public taste and promote, foster high quality dramas both in the categories of original creations and adaptation of masterpieces from international theatre.

The organizers of the view that lack of state patronage for qualitative productions coupled with advertising and promotional constrains delayed the festival. However, LCYTF initiated the festival last year, though at a very low scale, with three short plays and one mainstream play.

In the future, the organisers expect to offer the theatre goers a variety of meaningful entertainment by having plays for children, short plays and plays from other countries in the festival.

Then the festival will be one of its kind in Sri Lanka making Colombo as a significant centre for creative activity for Young Audiences. LCYTF With the intention of attracting people of all walks, the tickets are priced at affordable rates.

This has been due to the very sincere assistance extended by a number of institutions to make this event a reality. The organizers wish to inform the public that parking facilities at Lionel Wendt theatre during the festival are also provided to ease the burden on the public.

LCYTF should be commended for its contribution to Sri Lankan theatre in general and children's and youth theatre in particular as the protection and fostering of this particular segment of theatre is a duty of the nation as it is a part of the collective conscience.

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