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| Sunday, 4 August 2002 |
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By Jayanthi Liyanage
"British-type of farce is my forte," pronounces Mohamed Adamaly, dangling 'Run for your wife' is just a fortnight away from the local English theatre audiences. "The idea of this type of theatre is to be unbelievable and gives pure entertainment. I think our audiences really love it because they have such a high pressure week and need a way of relief without being bombarded with a social message." Contrast is the key to humour in 'Run for your wife' by Ray Cooney, "perhaps, the most successful comedy playwright in Britain," says Adamaly. "It's the funniest script I've ever read." Take John Smith (Adamaly), the London cabbie. An ordinary man, with an ordinary name and an ordinary job. But the ordinary too has a streak of the unusual. His irregular working hours which gives him a most unusual life style, spinning around this common man, chaos and contrasting characters. John has the audacity or the weakness to run two homes just five minutes away from each other. As long as the two wives (Neidra Williams and Wanda Godlieb) are blissfully unaware of each other, all is well for John. Then, comes the day when John, the gallant, saves an old woman from muggers and earns a concussion. Muddled John gives the police one address and the hospital the other and the police decides to send a detective to see what its all about. And the fun starts. "In farce, there in no character development," explains Adamaly. "To sustain personalities which are not complex and to bring the humour out, you have to have perfect timing and the play has to move like a rocket." 'Run for your wife' rocket-hurls with two apartments of a caring, introvert wife and a fiery, extrovert wife on the same set and each renting her upstair flat to a gay dressmaker (Jerome de Silva) and an unemployed lay-about. There are two policemen - one regimental and play-by-rule (Deshan Devasagayam); and the other, go-beyond-duty-to-become-a-friend (Johann Peiris). Stanley (Sean Amerasekera) is John's very reluctant accomplice in the roller-coaster of little lies which gets thicker and messier. And Feroze Kamardeen makes a guest appearance. "It's lovely to do comedies for Sri Lankan audiences because they love to laugh out loud, both at smaller and bigger laughs, unlike the conservative British audiences where the actors focus only on the bigger laughs." Adamaly also says 'Run for your wife' has parallels to the day-to-day lives "in the double-lives and the facade we put on." The sequel to the play 'Caught in the net', is now out in England. "I will do it next year," promises Adamaly. =================== The
Performing Listening to Mohamed Adamaly, one is easily convinced that his histrionic talents were born at a very early age. His absolute animation while discussing the theatre shakes the listener into an intrigued reciprocal for his obvious passion for it. "When I was a child, I remember going to plays I didn't even understand," Adamaly looks to a past when his elder sister, Nafeesa Amirudeen, tagged him along for a few of the late Richard de Soysa's early plays. "Very philosophical ones," he reminisces. "I was about ten when I watched 'Waiting for Godot', an extremely abstract play, from start to finish. Only when I read it now I realise, Gosh, what it really meant." With a first public performance at the age of nine years which developed in depth and stature through school and university, and a family immersed in theatre, it is not surprising that soon after passing out as an attorney-at-law, Adamaly got around to forming his own theatre company, PAC, in 1994. "Nafeesa does the direction and I, the production," he explains the inner workings of the PAC (Performing Arts Company) crew. And his wife, Nadeera, co-produces. Nafeesa, incidentally, is a senior teacher in Speech and Drama. Adamaly's second sister, Yasmin Akbarally, a Directress at the Hermitage Art Gallery, does the costumes and decor, the sets with colour and furniture, with added creativity from her sister-in-law. PAC also gets a professional hand from other experienced theatre personalities. "People who have been with me from almost the beginning," Adamaly says reverently, naming a few - Jerome de Silva, Neidra Williams, Dayan Candappa and Feroze Kamardeen who just brought out 'Animal Farm.' "They stood by me and that's how PAC has been possible." PAC is firmly on its haunches and has four comedies and two serious theatre ventures to prove it. 'Run for your wife', making its second coming after eight years, was their maiden comedy hit. The other comedies were 'Don't dress for dinner', 'Funny Money' and Shaffer's 'Black comedy', the Sinhala production of which was Felix Premawardena's 'Kaluware Jaramare'. "Thriller - Death trap" and "Death and the Maiden" were more sombre efforts. "Serious theatre in this country gets a lesser turnout than comedy or musicals," says Adamaly. "I think it's time for the country to laugh again." And he invites you to come in, switch off your worries and enjoy yourselves for an hour and a half when 'Run for your wife' goes on the Boards from August 15, in a set built in exclusive extravagance for Lionel Wendt. "It's more polished, slicker and funnier with mostly the fire-blooded cast of the first production." Tickets are available at the Lionel Wendt. |
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