DRAMA Review

Dear Children, Sincerely: A search for answers to questions that may be forgotten

by Dilshan Boange

I watched Ruwanthie de Chickera's latest work of theatre on its closing night in Colombo on January 31. An international collaboration between artistes from Rwanda and Sri Lanka, staged at the Western Province Theatre Resort, 'Dear Children, Sincerely' proved to be a thought provoking series of sketches/episodes, with symbolic expressionistic narratives, including stylised gestures, movements that bore rhythm and motion for storytelling, all of which sought to move beyond the spoken word.

Although the pre-performance introduction made over the sound system was trilingual and in the order of English, Sinhala, and Tamil, the performance was very much a multilingual one, which included diction in Sinhala, English and also what was presumably of (a) Rwandan language. However, I was intrigued to note that no Tamil diction was really identifiably audible in the course of the multilingual dialogues and utterances that were delivered from performances.

The script of the performance was stated to have been developed on interviews of elders from both Rwanda and Sri Lanka, on specific topics. Interestingly enough, this wasn't a performance whose narrative was solely through the action on the stage. Multimedia projector slides by the side of the stage and voiceovers of those texts gave the background and theme for each episode or sketch, before it came to life on the boards. It was in that sense a twofold method of narrating a personal account of an elder, of a historical event from either Rwanda or Sri Lanka. A verbal statement coupled with a corresponding modern day expressionistic theatrical statement.

Carefree game

A renowned and revered leader in the cause for world peace and human rights, Desmond Tutu, is believed to have said -"When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land." The sketch that showed a carefree game of 'Rats and Rabbits' between two African groups provided a symbolic narrative of how French colonialism arrived in Rwanda, speciously, and with subtle but effective invasiveness, which although doesn't highlight the component of Christian evangelism involved as indicated by Desmond Tutu, most certainly demonstrated the western colonial theory of 'divide and conquer' and 'divide and rule' as practiced over 'natives'.

The colonist arrived adorned in shawls of the colours of the French flag and bestowed them as gifts to label and thereby differentiate and segregate the two groups of players. He ended up supporting the blue shawl wearing 'rabbits' against the red shawl wearing 'rats' and instilled what I call the 'Might Right', which westerners were infamous for practicing in their colonies. Interestingly enough, the 'rabbits' who were supported by the French colonist was the group with the physically bigger made players and composed of a lesser number.

A numerical quantifiable 'minority' one could say. Identifying divisible groups and then empowering a 'minority' and favouring them over the majority, so as to establish a group of 'native collaborators' to help the white man oppress the majority, was very much core to the colonial theory of 'Divide and Rule'. The British practised it here just as the French did it in Rwanda. The Sri Lankan Independence Day sketch that delved into exploring the 'historical memory' of that historic occasion and was, among other matters, rather focused on contesting the notion of 'national identity', delivered a highly critical argument of what the 'functionality' of the 'national flag' and the presence and significance of that national flag ought to be at that occasion.

Maternal grandmother

True, as we age, we may tend to recall moments from childhood mostly as visual glimpses. The verbal narratives of elders and the players onstage all unanimously declared they either remember no flag's presence or asserted 'there was no flag'. But was the sight of the national flag utterly inconspicuous or its memory completely obscured to negation to all the elders interviewed for this script? Depends on who was interviewed I suppose? For the record, I still have my late maternal grandmother, Nalini Madugalle Eramudugolla's diary of 1948. And in her entry on February 4, she has noted several things related to the celebrations that happened as well as polity changes such as -"Birth of a new dominion. Governor sworn in as Governor General." And she, an 18 year old at that time, also noted-"hoisting of the lion flag."

On histories bespeaking of civil disarray that led to bloodshed and breakdown of human reason, the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and the leftist insurgencies here in 1971 and 1988-89 were the events that were focused on to show how mindless brutality ruled the land, and humanity eroded, wrecking an entire generation's future. A bus ride between Sinhala and Tamil people where there is a tussle between them for one group to gain supremacy over the other as helmsmen, depicted the social discord that arose after the introduction of the Swabasha policy, which made Sinhala and Tamil officials languages, but is now construed as the 'Sinhala Only Act'.

In respect of stagecraft, what was seen was an austere minimalism in terms of sets. The effect of lights was a strong point together with the smoke machine effects, adding depth of visual impressions to the audience that pronounced emotions of certain situations. 'Dear Children, Sincerely' is not for theatregoers who seek popular entertainment on a weekend to get their funny bone tickled and have a load taken off after an exhausting week. It addresses those who believe theatre can teach us to think and reflect about ourselves, as individuals and as collectives, how we are subjects of the heritage(s) and histories we have inherited. It addresses a search for answers to questions that may possibly not be much remembered in times ahead.