Tracking an uncatchable enigma:

Grease Yaka

By Dilshan Boange

Theatre not merely for the laughs, not solely as entertainment, seems to be the credo guiding the productions of the Stages Theatre Group over the course of their past works put on the boards for the pleasure of theatregoers. But how much of the 'food for thought' offered by this theatre company is actually 'digested' in the intended manner by the audiences who flock to watch the creative talents unfold as stimulating performances?

I wondered about this sitting in the gentle darkness recently at the Lionel Wendt as giggles audibly sparked from here and there as the Police Constable named Jayatissa as an interrogator tortured the hapless servant boy Manju by stamping one of his feet forcefully on the boy's 'genital area' while his other foot violently thrust at the boy's neck. Perhaps it was because someone's 'nuts' were being stomped on?

Perhaps there was something perverse in that? Those laughs were quite telling in some way for us to introspectively reflect as to who we are, and what sensitivities and sensibilities we are composed of, or not, when subtly tested before the 'mirror' of art. In that sense the Stages Theatre Group can be thought of as 'tastefully political'.

Victim

When I first saw the promotional material notifying theatregoers of Ruwanthie de Chickera's upcoming production I wondered in amusement whether she had at some point been a victim of the voyeuristic Grease yaka! But jokes aside, I knew she had broached a topic that could develop a contemporary socio-political criticism in the form of theatre. The Stages Theatre Group together with Anandadrama presented what was labelled as a work of 'devised theatre'.

At the very outset what cannot be expected is therefore a drama in the mould of the realist genre, or the classically stylised, or operatic genres. The stagecraft of this production showed 'space' was 'devised' to 'shift' in its 'utility' by means of the props which in turn allowed multiple meanings and significances to be read of the 'picture' being created through light, sound and movement.

A facet of the performance that must be noted was the level of agility and adroitness of the young men whose acrobatics on stage that happened from time to time were impressive.

The vigour and dynamism of this element of the performance added 'active ornamentation' to the 'storyline' effectively attracting the viewer's eye and attention.

Bilingualism

A significant facet of the performance which is integral to the work is that it cannot be understood by a viewer who is not conversant in Sinhala and English. Grease Yaka though I assumed it to be an English medium play, is in fact a Sinhala- English bilingual play which can be, if I may venture to speculate, an emerging sub genre in contemporary Sri Lankan theatre in respect of language medium.

While I do wish to go into an extensive discussion about the academic standpoints as to how bilingual speech can be indentified in respect of 'code mixing' and 'code switching', it may serve the layman reader to know that the insertion of an English word here and there, as done nowadays by many TV and radio broadcasters hosting essentially 'Sinhala medium' shows catering to the youth of today, is regarded by some academic standpoint as 'code mixing' and certainly does not demonstrate solid 'bilingual speech'.

The middleclass urbanism of contemporary Sri Lanka is very much characterised by bilingualism. It is a 'linguistic reality' which is yet, to the best of my knowledge to take firm root in the Sri Lankan arts practiced today as fiction, film, and theatre. In this respect one cannot classify 'Grease Yaka' as strictly an English play nor a Sinhala play, but for very practically self evident reasons a 'bilingual play', which may be a bold forerunner of a 'species in the making'.

What is noteworthy is even the title, composed of an English word and a Sinhala word that becomes what is called a 'hybrid word' in the likeness of the word 'egg roti', was presented as 'hybrid writing' in all promotional material and the admission ticket as well. The word Yaka is printed in Sinhala on the admission ticket, which has not a single other word written in Sinhala.

One may wonder if the subtext of the production carries an intention to state how the manifold significances of the word Yaka must be made to standout and standalone for its 'Sinhala' identity. And the connotations that will arise, if a proposition of that nature be an intention, then in relation to the context of the play, such statement has implications of significant political proportions.

Perhaps, if one thinks of the ending, where the 'meddlesome foursome' that form the grease yaka group, spot their newest subject for the next wave of fear psychosis is indicative of what kind of 'political critique' the production intends to deliver. I will not venture further along that avenue of discussion due to the sensitivity of the topic and the connected volatilities that have arisen, and, therefore, I feel it is best for viewers to arrive at their own conclusions.

Fear and power

An overarching argument portrayed in the play is that rulers depend on fear as a trump card over the people they rule. Since time immemorial, rulers of all nations found it vital that the people see a need to be protected from some force of violence and looked to the State to answer that need.

What the play argues is that fear psychoses can be manufactured, and once created can be controlled as desired by its creators. The media, the police, politicians and even religious establishments are shown to be the tiers that the public look towards in times of desperation for answers to the fear factor that cripples the normalcy in their daily lives.

A very important facet of the play is how the intense mediatisation of society is depicted as having come to the point where public opinion is manufactured and manipulated by the power holders in society, which includes mass media, which is trusted without question as being 'authoritative' and 'reliable' by the people.

The media purports to get public opinion which reflects the views of the people which are in fact engineered to obtain a particular result.

The prime example of this assertion made in the play was when TV broadcasters barged into the house of the gluttonous family of couch potatoes and barraged them with questions particularly the father who was marginally intelligible in his speech and clearly inept to answer.

The questions showed how the media wanted to enlarge the image of the grease yaka enigma speculating flight capability and even raising rumour that the grease yaka is the spawn of Mohini and Kalu kumaraya, two malefic sprits of Sinhala folklore, which I must say had me roaring with laughter.

But what the broadcasters depict is something very potent in terms of 'cultural criticism' of our times. The TV tells you what to do. It's as simple as that. Be a caller to a live panel discussion on air and speak to the 'experts' on the subject featured on the show on how to escape from the grease yaka.

But what was left undiscovered by the public in that play was that the very figures running the mass media segments were the miscreants who were playing grease yaka on a complacent public.

This play is in one sense about the masks of power. And along the story we see that sometimes the mask is a simple misdirection as a trail of stains of grease and blood; a combination that was emphasised on significantly in the play.

Orchestrations

The way in which widespread paranoia can be created leading to mass hysteria came out engagingly by characters as the fussy mother played very commendably by Dinoo Wickramage, and also the obese overeating woman who must be applauded for her performance.

The height of the fear psychosis over the grease yaka was drilled into the public by the line delivered in Sinhala by one of the broadcasters -"Are you the grease yaka?" This simple line suggests that the grease yaka could be amongst you.

It could be anyone at all!' and thus the public began shrieking in terror. Once public panic reaches its zenith and mass hysteria is unleashed as a result of the foursome of 'grease yakas' it was interesting to note how one of the four troublemakers slapped his slippers together and announced an end to their boisterous fear mongering. The signification is that it was all an act. An act meant to run within a particular timeframe.

Police Constable Jayatissa is a hapless victim in the wake of the grease yaka episode, just like the poor boy Manju. PC Jayatissa is not even fully recognised of his name, the most basic of 'identity markers' of a 'person'.

He is referred to and addressed as Jayaratne, Jayathunga and so on, indicating that he is inconsequential in the larger picture of power play. Interestingly the first part of his name -'Jaya' which means victory in Sinhala seems oxymoronic given his predicament.

Commendable

The phenomenon of the grease yaka is perhaps the first solid case of an 'urban legend' to develop in Sri Lanka. And the fact that Ruwanthie de Chickera focused on doing a creative work to mark it as a phenomenon of our times is commendable.

Perhaps this play will give the 'grease yaka' a lease of life as a possible urban legend which over time may produce an image, a metaphor with significance for interpretations on aspects of human behaviour.

It is important to note that the word Yaka in the Sinhala language does not actually serve as an analogy to the definitions and connotations of the English word 'devil' which finds its original signification in the biblical image of 'the devil' who is 'the fallen angel' Lucifer or Satan.

The word 'demon' on the other hand being associated more with western perceptions of the occult, denotes a malefic, supernatural being that is 'other-worldly'. It may surprise some to know that the word 'yaka' does not denote a patently negative or malefic connotation as one of 'negative value' in the context of Sinhala dialectics.

The yaka can be fearsome and malefic or helpful and benevolent. The word yaka is firstly a colloquially used shortened form of the word yakshaya which finds its origins steeped in history of pre Buddhist times not only in Sri Lanka but in India as well.

In Buddhist Sutras these beings are described as being on par with gods in power and strength. Perhaps the most significant sutra in this regard are the Aatanaatiya where the Buddha converses with the Yaksha King Vessavaana; who being a devout follower of the Buddha, is said to have attained the state of a 'Sotapanna', and thereby on the path to attain Nirvana.

The phraseology found in the Sinhala language of today which have the word yaka are so numerous that it is a topic of academic research all by itself. However, anyone familiar with how the word yaka becomes contextualised in conversation will know that it is an expression which signifies positive attributes at times as well as negative ones.

When someone is capable of accomplishing something in a very short span of time under adverse circumstances that would be above the capability of an average person such a person could be said, in a certain turn of phrase in Sinhala, to be a yaka.

There is an undeniable duality to the attributes denoted by the word 'yaka' where the significations vary depending on the speech context.

An example to this duality's symbolism can be found embodied in the forms of certain Sri Lankan deities such as god Kadawara and god Sooniyam to take as examples. They while being titled as deviyo (god) are also titled as yaka when invoked to be wrathful avengers against injustice done to devotees. There is no doubt that the word yaka carries complexity in how its position of values can be adduced in Sinhala culture.

Pandemonium

The grease yaka as it became sensationalised when it first made the news in papers was 'positioned' as a 'peeping Tom' pursuing voyeuristic desires. There was a sexual depravity aspect involved in defining the 'entity'. Later on, theft of women's undergarments and even outright physical assaults on women were reported as developments of the character of the grease yaka.

Finally as paranoia led to pandemonium and people in grease yaka affected areas began hunting for young men likely to be playing the merry devil under coatings of grease; 'blood' came into the picture as panic stricken people took the law into their own hands.

The tragic culminating point of the 'grease yaka' episode was when an armed mob in Puttalam town set upon 29-year-old Police Constable Nawaratna Bandarage and mercilessly hacked him to death, driven by the unsubstantiated allegations that he was a grease yaka.

And as I watched from the very start how Ruwanthie de Chickera's play had a character of a police constable, the incident of the butchering of a policeman in broad daylight by a fanatical mob, struck a chord in me as how the grease yaka phenomenon -modern myth, or fact to be proven beyond doubt, did in fact claim its blood sacrifice.

The foursome who form the band of 'grease yaka' miscreants, to me were symbolic renditions of institutions and phenomena than being actual fixed personae as real people in the context of society. Their purpose to exist seemed to be for the pleasure of perpetuating fear.

Taking delight in causing human fear they are malefic entities who are other worldly and also representative of forces above the control of the average person. The young foursome of actors must be especially commended for the performance they delivered as young thespians, who proved they are actors with much promise for Sri Lankan theatre.

Blood and sex

The trio of characters Shane, Ally and Jagath brought out a facet related to the grease yaka in a very significant way when they unwound in a spa to get a 'blood massage', which was something of a trap to lure in victims.

To me the whole aspect of masochism and sexual derangement associated with the concept of the grease yaka phenomenon came out rather well through that segment.

Why was that trio, led by the acting talents of Miranga Ariyaratne playing Shane, indulging in a massage that involves having blood of the masseuse rubbed on the skin of the client? And what was the result of it?

The play is quite rightly a creative endeavour to capture some facets of the impressions and conceptual image of the enigma, with or course a wide array of creative and free thinking being built into delivering an engaging discourse through theatre.

It deals with a heady subject in heavy doses. An innovative endeavour which contributes much to contemporary Sri Lankan theatre.