Revisiting an ‘angry dozen’

By Dilshan Boange

A review of a drama, unlike a book or a film, would in my opinion demand a greater reliance on the accuracy of recollection of that experience of engaging it as it unfolds its performance. Unlike a film or a book to have recourse to the work in its original intended nature as a live performance is not possible when it comes to theatre. There is no turning back the pages or rewinding to ‘recheck that bit’ again.

The burden of making ‘mental notes’ while enjoying the play is something that the reviewer of a work of theatre has to undoubtedly resign to, and contend with, sitting in the gentle darkness of the auditorium. And no two shows of a play could be the exact same performance since apart from changes in the cast there is also that reality of how the actors deliver their words and actions in every new performance. Yes, that way, theatre can be far more demanding from its audience than film.

The jurors

The first time I watched the stage drama Dolahak (Twelve), a drama translated into Sinhala by Athula Pathirana from the original English teleplay script titled Twelve angry men by Reginald Rose, it was over a year ago, in December 2011 when the theatre circuit was buzzing with this production that presented an all star cast which smacked of the promise of ‘enjoyableness’ to those who have a taste for theatre.

Dolahak has since, needless to say, found good reception from theatre lovers across the country. But the script from which Pathirana did his translation and presented his debut as a stage drama director was an English teleplay originally intended for the screen and later found itself ‘transformed’ to go on the boards in the USA. It was later adapted for the big screen first in 1957 and then again in 1997 and thereby has proved its expandability between forms of presentation.

Analysis

It was Gihan de Chickera, who plays one of the jurors in Dolahak, who told me that the film Twelve angry men can be watched on YouTube. And now, a year after my first time watching Pathirana’s maiden theatre direction, I have set myself to watch the 1957 version of the film and compare it with my recollections of the play I saw at the Lionel Wendt.

Is it a mismatched comparative of works? One could contend so but I do not purport to present an exhaustive analysis of the two works in this article. The premise of the comparative would be of a film watchable online and recollections of a performance that unfolded on stage where there is in addition to the difference of media and form, the divide in language.

And, therefore, I feel that one of the main lines of scrutiny in respect of Pathirana’s work would be how forceful was it in creating an enduring impression upon an attentive viewer?

The 1957 version is of Twelve Angry men is a black and white film which isn’t as far as I can see ‘typically Hollywood’ but has the trimmings that project the unmistakable topographical imagery characteristic of the US identity.

The film opens with a visual capturing the courts complex and its architectural impressiveness and tracks the camera in to the building, thus setting the viewers mind to the ‘environment’ in which the story is to unfold. The film’s opening adds much context to the scenario of the story.

Pathirana’s Dolahak

In contrast to this cinematic approach what Pathirana presents on stage is the jury’s deliberation chamber as the opening that lasts throughout as the unchanging set. Dolahak as opposed to Twelve angry men could even be called a one act play or even a performance with one long drawn out scene. Pathirana’s stagecraft shows how he had negotiated with the ‘dimensional realities’ of theatre when adopting a screen play to the stage.

I found myself eagerly wanting to spot the ‘characters’ played by our local talents in Dolahak in their original ‘U.S American’ mould as scripted by Rose.

Needless to say the easiest to spot straight off are the ones played by Sampath Jayaweera, W. Jayasiri, and Vishwajith Gunasekera whose role was that of the dissenting juror who sets the ball rolling to systematically turn the near unanimous verdict of ‘guilty’ to an acquittal. On the matter of acting, and how the characters project themselves as performers on stage to a live audience and to the camera, one marked difference between the two works quite aside from the language factor, is that the dissenting juror in the film does not equate to the one played by Gunasekera, in demeanour.

Comparing the dissenter

The film’s character was one who was unquestionably resolved in his opinion of a ‘reasonable doubt’ being existent on the matter of the boy’s guilt; but he was by no means the same redoubtable persona that Gunasekera brings out on stage. The film’s dissenting juror is notably docile compared to what Gunasekera delivers. But the advantage in film media is that its endless angles of capturing an object visually allows the camera to project the emotions expressed facially much more effectively by simply doing a ‘tight close-up’ frame, whereas to communicate the state of emotions of a character in theatre would require sometimes perhaps more ‘expression means’ to complement the facial expressions and ensure that it is carried all the way to the very last row of seats in the auditorium.

Theatre dimensions and cinema

Maybe Pathirana’s directorial sense told him that a more formidable persona could be better theatrically projected and be more successful to what the mould found ‘cinematically delivered’ in the film. But then that is presuming that the director of Dolahak watched the 1957 film being discussed here, before setting out to make his own adaptation to Sinhala theatre.

A scene from the play

On the matter of dimensions of theatre and cinema, there is a marked difference in the spatial element that characterises not only the physical boundaries the characters are placed in, but also the intensification of the atmosphere visually. The length and breadth of the Lionel Wendt auditorium’s stage gives a much more generous ‘breathing space’ it so appeared (as I recall the play in my head) compared to the rather claustrophobic enclosed set one finds in the film.

It is worth keeping in mind that in the theatre the viewer is never really shown a room fully closed from all four sides, despite the scene being ‘meant’ to be in one. The camera however takes your visual senses to a space that has closed off from all four sides. There is, in this matter of comparing the physical parameters of the two ‘forms’ an ‘effect factor’ that impacts the ‘viewer psyche’ somewhat surreptitiously. It is very much a case of the manner in which the ‘space’ the actors are found in is rendered with different significances in the viewer’s mind due to the very rudiments of the two forms.

The menace factor

The feeling of menace to me became more heightened in the film as a reflection of the enclosed space, whereas in Dolahak for example the pandemonium, when Dharmapriya Dias’s character tries to go at the dissenting juror and in the heat of the moment yells Mama tho maranawa (I’m going to kill you) the effect was more theatricalised and generated its effect through playing more on the merits of being ‘emphatically dramatic’. Therefore the menacing atmosphere in the film in a way, gets compressed between the walls. Dolahak on the other hand didn’t seem to be a work that seemed to have an overtly planted sense of menace pervading across the stage.

Pathirana had very clearly made his translation an ‘adaptation’ as well in respect of certain elements that would characterise the schema of emotions that weave the pulse of the drama unfolding in words and gestures. Humour was one notable aspect that makes Dolahak identifiably ‘Sri Lankan’. Twelve angry men does not deliver itself as a work that makes humour part of its main composite of emotional scales that the viewer would be made to identify as ‘characterising’ the conclave.

Character comparisons

W. Jayasiri with his exponential manoeuvring of vocal tones and gesticulations was clearly the driving pulse of the humour element in the production of Dolahak I watched. Sampath Jayaweera’s character, although resembled noticeably in attire the juror who would be the ‘film counterpart’ seemed more adrenaline pumped and less nuanced in his manner in delivering his sarcasm when compared to the wisecracking ‘screen character’ in the film.

The character of the elderly juror however, the ‘old man’, is more of a firm and poised personality in the film than in Dolahak. He seemed more docile and displayed more detectable frailty in Pathirana’s work than the black and white character on screen. The role played by de Chickera also has a notable different scope to his personality when looking at the character between the two works. The one in the film had a more visible control and flux to his expression of emotions as the prejudicial remarks towards slum dwellers spirals in ways that makes it personally injurious to him. Although the character played by de Chickera on stage had more physical presence in the context of the play the film’s character seemed to hold his moments in the narrative, the story, in a way it draws more focus through his demeanour.

Class warfare and vote changing

One of the notable developments from the original boundaries of the English script’s subject matter is how Dolahak clearly brings out a more express ‘class warfare’ outlook and agenda on the part of the character played by W. Jayasiri. The film doesn’t present a character who exceeds to the point to say that what the jurors have in their hands is an opportunity to send one of society’s ‘undesirables’ to the electric chair. The character played by Jayasiri rants to the extent to say, that unless they take steps the slum dwelling layer will eventually overrun them and destroy them all. There isn’t an express statement pronounced in the film in this respect, although he drives a harshly class based viewpoint.

The manner in which this particular character finally relents or changes his vote to ‘not guilty’ is also worth comparing between the two works. Dolahak shows the character played by Jayasiri cast his vote in with the new majority mainly due to being fed up and indifferent in a certain way. The element of hilarity thus is made consistent by Pathirana with the way how the more verbose and boorish characters like the ones played by Jayasiri and Jayaweera change their vote, the manner and disposition towards the matter being as one who gives in to a bunch who are almost incorrigible having become a growing majority from which there is little chance of escape. However, the film presents the character played by Jayasiri as one who concedes to the ‘not guilty’ faction being thrown into a silence that showed pensiveness, and him appearing disillusioned about himself almost, after the argument about the ‘eye glasses’ factor of the most ‘credible’ and persuasive eye witness to the murder is brought out and her accuracy of vision becomes a factor to build a ‘reasonable doubt’.

The nameless jurors

A significantly noteworthy aspect of the two works quite apart from language and media form is how the namelessness of the jury is partly broken in the film at the very end where on the way out, on the steps to the courthouse complex the dissenting juror is asked for his name by the elderly juror and there they exchange names and shake hands.

It is interesting to note that the concept of the story as a whole posits the jurors to be gauged in terms of their visage, jobs and social status, background etc but do not present them in terms of names. Dolahak does not at any point introduce to its audience any names of the jurors. The namelessness factor works more profoundly and runs a deeper significance in my opinion when one looks at Pathirana’s approach.

The film ends with a music that denotes a happy ending of sorts, where the proverbial ‘silver line’ on the grey cloud has been discovered. Pathirana’s stage adaptation however begins and ends with the same deep, impactful somewhat haunting music that is almost like a sound that knells the ominous end. Dolahak in that sense captures through its music both at the start and the finish the idea of the subject matter as one that is serious, grave and not for trifling, despite the threads of comicality woven in to the picture to deliver some much appreciable humour.

The aspect of music

In this regard on the matter of music, there is no ‘lightening of the load’ so to speak in Pathirana’s theatrical vision simply because the boy got an acquittal. Maybe it is meant to speak on the theme in a wider sense and not restrict to the story per se. Every jury deliberation in a trial for murder where the accused stands trial for his life carries the same burden of determining whether a person is guilty or not. But does the verdict always come out right? That may be the inferred question.

Dolahak does not show the audience anything of the court proceedings. We are shown nothing of what the accused looks like. But the film offers the viewer a strikingly empathy evoking shot of the eighteen year old which is held for a few seconds as a pitiful sounding music runs as the audio element. Clearly the politics of the filmmaker intended to generate viewer sympathy for the accused. The very face chosen for the role speaks volumes.

Dolahak on the other hand begins and ends in the confines of the jury’s deliberation room. Anyone in the audience who wants to have a preconceived prejudice towards the boy is not made to sway on the impact of an imploring helpless looking face. The audience can that way base their own verdict purely on the arguments and conversations that happens amongst the jurors. There is in that approach, I believe, a certain integrity, in the ‘deal’ between the drama and its audience. The audience is free to judge the jurors who are to decide the fate of an eighteen year old accused of first degree murder, standing trial for his life.

Which was better?

Was the film better than the drama or the other way around? There can be no single objective answer to such a question I believe. However, a ‘verdict’ on the enjoyableness between the two works can be made with the general taste and cultural context of the commentator being taken into consideration of course. Is the power to deliver humour, to elicit laughter from the audience the yardstick for enjoyableness? Is hilarity the factor that makes a performance enjoyable? I have given this matter some thought.

It would be rather narrow to say that whatever can make the audience laugh more has been the one that can be enjoyed better. The enjoyableness of a work I feel lies in how well it can connect to the emotional bases and even ideological perspectives of the viewer. This being of course in general, and even applicable in relation to books which of course offer a different form of entertainment. Considering how the humour in Dolahak was tastefully scripted and masterfully delivered by the seasoned actors the humour it did not totally overshadow the core sentiment and theme related to the subject. In this sense it was no doubt very well crafted as an adaptation to suit a Sri Lankan audience. By my personal taste I found Dolahak more enjoyable than ‘Twelve angry men’.

And so as this year draws to an end Athula Pathirana had decided to stage his production for the last time this year on the numerically significant date 12/12/12 at the Lionel Wendt. A date well planned in keeping with the show’s title one must say. And such a matching of day, month and year to be in the same digits isn’t probable to reoccur within the lifetime of any of us alive today.

Thus on this note as I conclude my revisiting the story of the twelve men thrust together by jury duty to decide on the life of a fellow citizen of theirs, comparing it with my experiencing it between two languages and media, I wonder if Pathirana will maintain his rendition of Rose’s story as one that has fully fulfilled his vision of the story as a Sinhala language production or if he may in time, experiment with it, devising new means to give newer ‘angles’ to the story.