The birth of tragedy, Nietzsche, Eric Illayapparachchi and Sarachachandra

As I have been contemplating to write a Cultural Scene focusing on opera and appreciating opera, I came cross one of the most amusing articles appearing in a Sinhala blog under the title Sarathchandra, Nietzsche and Kemadasa.

Further amused by the association of the personalities in the title, and the myths and wrong theories and assumptions piled up on this article, I want to focus on one of the tragedies emerging in the Sri Lankan literary and cultural scene where facts and myths are interjected and mix matched to build new groundless theories. In this week's column, I want to focus on some aspects of an article written by Eric Illayapparachchi, a Sri Lankan, poet, novelist and also a writer on many other things including modern art!

This amusing article begins with a fact and a myth. A faithful translation of the lead sentences of the article reads: "Sarathchandra is a symbol that describes the excellence of Sinhala drama. Sarathchndra's plays influenced a large number of people similar to Greek dramas and Elizabethan plays." This is indeed a high praise for Sarathchandra's theatrical achievements which is unfortunately not popular beyond our shores. However, comparing Sarathchandra's plays with Greek dramas and Elizabethan plays is questionable. But, Illayapparachchi believes so!

Illayapparachchi's attempt to look at Saratahchnadra's so called tragedies without even referring to the role he played "in forging a new critical outlook on both classical and modern literatures" or by producing Maname Natakaya which has changed "decisively the course of Sinhala drama" by establishing a tradition that was rooted in the past..." (Dissanayake, 2005) is an obvious error and omission, perhaps a fact that Illayapparachchi is ignorant of.

llayapparachchi asserts: "An excellent service that a dramatist can contribute to the field of drama is to provide [write] a tragedy. I presume that the services of Sarathchandra are the same." So in order to provide a framework to look at the tragedies of Sarathchandra, Illayapparachchi embraces German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche's work "The Birth of Tragedy." Without looking at any relevant information on Sarathchandra's achievements and how he "decisively [changed] the course of Sinhala drama" by establishing a tradition that was rooted in the past..."

Those who are familiar with the works of Nietzsche (1844-1900) may be aware that he was a philosopher who challenged the foundations of Christianity and traditional morality and not an authority on drama or tragedies. Nietzsche was primarily interested in the enhancement of individual and cultural health, and believed creativity, power of life and people, and the realities of the world we live in, rather than drama or tragedies. The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche's first book, published in 1872, when he was a professor of classical philology in Switzerland. He was just 28 years then. Although Nietzsche's book deals with the Greeks' tragic work of art but the Sri Lankan librettist Illayapparachchi fails to mention Greek tragedies and mainly the fact that after the Greeks, Seneca, had a great influence on all Elizabethan tragedy writers. (Seneca was among the greatest authors of classical tragedies and his influence formed part of a developing tradition of tragedies including William Shakespeare).

It is evident that Illayapparachchi is either not aware or ignorant of literature on drama or yet to take any formal courses on Greek tragedies, thus, compares Sarathchandra's work in the context of Greek tragedies using a framework borrowed from a German philosopher and ignoring Sarathchandra's work that decisively changed the course of Sinhala drama."

However, the story does not end there! Illayapparachchi then jumps into the structural deficiencies of Sri Lankan tragedies criticising Sarathchandra and those who wrote both lyrics and provided music to his play. He then brings one of his recent heroes Maestro Kemadasa and Agani opera, the librettist is none other than Illayapparachchi. I presume that day time civil servant; Eric Illayapparachchi has had no formal training in music or an expert on either Sarathchandra's work or even Nietzsch's text used as a framework to praise the work of Kemadasa. However, in this most confusing article in which Illayapparachchi attempts to analyse music, Sarathchandra's work in the contexts of Nietzsch's very first book uses undefined terminology such as Nietzschian approach, Sarathchandra's tragedies, Dionysian approaches etc. Arguments or ideas presented in this article are ambiguous and confusing. It is evident that Illayapparachchi brings both German philosopher and Sarathchandra to establish an unrelated framework to praise Maestro Kemadasa's genius work on Agni Opera. Writing to a sister paper, Daily News, Eric has praised his own two years ago:

"Agni has already changed the direction of the musical creations and offers a big challenge to the popular concept of music. In a country where the popular mode is the simple song, his music has to change the audience's relationship to the musical experience.

In the Agni opera you can listen to one-and-half hour musical performance giving the impression of a gigantic epic theatre because of its huge sonic canvas. Each new melody, harmony and rhythmic change is monumental and there is nothing to compare with it in the contemporary musical scene."

(Sonic canvas of Premasiri Khemadasa" by Eric Illayapparachchi, The Daily News (Sri Lanka), 28 October 2008).

What is "huge sonic canvas" or "Sarathchandra's tragedies" and why we need to bring theories of Nietzsche's very first book to look at either Sarathchandra's work or even Maestro Kemadasa's impressive gigantic epic theatre?

So according to Illayapparachchi's own words Agni opera is nothing but a "gigantic epic theatre." This is indeed a tragi-comedy and the level that an award winning writer has gone to write a judgement about his own work!

The extracts of Illayapparachchi's praise of his own work is also a good example of a level of criticism emerging in Sinhala cultural and literary arenas today. In my view, these tragicomedies are an intellectual bankruptcies that writers like llayapparachchi attempt to introduce into Sinhala cultural scene.

In my view, llayapparachchi who himself is a poet forgets to look at the tradition within which Sarathchandra has written his plays. One need not go and embrace the work of Nietzsche for such an exercise! This also raises the cardinal question about some of Sri Lankan writer's incapacity to understand roots and tradition of our very culture.

If llayapparachchi wants to understand Sarathchandra's role as a cultural intellectual or how he sought to establish a modern drama tradition in Sri Lanka, I recommend him to read at least Wimal Dissanayake's insightful analysis about Sarathchandra in Enabling Traditions -Four Sinhala Cultural Intellectuals, pp 87-111 (2008) without going too far to bring Nietzsche, perhaps without knowing his work in its original form. Illapparachchi's article and attempt to analyse music or literary theories is a proverbial 'Atamagala', the Sinhalese term, among other things, referring to a loosely-knitted octagonal structure.

(Note: The article by Illayapparachchi, I refer is appearing in the following website: http://www.boondi.lk/CTRLPannel/BoondiArticles.php?ArtID=1064)