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| Sunday, 22 September 2002 |
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Black Dawn - a new dawn By Jayanthi Liyanage
When dawn comes, only two people will have achieved what they would desire. The Cunning, and, the Godly, - in ironic violation of all the ideologies humans have taught humans. The rest will remain just as doomed and damned as they were, before they swapped idols, in a frenzied grabbing of the proverbial stick proffered to the drowning. What did the two "who were not hanged" have in common? A wide-awake adherence to their own convictions, in discerning immobility to the shifting winds propelling them? The triumph of "the mind over the mindless" was the staying power of "After Midnight before Dawn" which captured us from the triplet of plays, "Black Dawn", which the Drama Society of St. Thomas' College, Mt. Lavinia, staged at the Lionel Wendt early this month. Its ethos perhaps brought on somewhat similar reverberations to that of "Murugasan Warusawa", the early Sinhala satire by Sugathapala de Silva. Though the last ended with the only clear-headed man in the arena concluding that in order to survive, he had to abandon his impregnability, and be "one of the crowd." The brilliance of the script had a fitting match in the brilliance of its vociferous and very articulate cast. All six players delivered excellent justice to their roles, with Niran Anketell, the 'Calm Man', and Naveen Perera, the 'Frightened Boy', delivering exceptionally well. Lighting was magnificently weaved into the sets. Until the last compelling scene when "the mindless" circle around invoking Satan, drowned in his evil red glow, we were stapled to our chair edges in acute suspense and the relevance of the play lines to our times of the nation was well received. In contrast to the violently vehement "After Midnight..." was the harrowing poignance in "David's Birthday". The tale of the mentally-handicapped and his unending search for a "home", - in the conflicting and hopelessly ravelled web of the family fabric and in the ebb and flow of its love/rejection; hate/acceptance; trust/abandonment; its endearing moments and harsh brutalities. Asitha Tennakoon, in his overwhelmingly authentic rendering of David, the mentally-handicapped, coming from his Home to celebrate his birthday at the residence of his sister, Maggie and her live-in boy friend, Paul, rakes out for himself an indelible gorge in the hearts of theatre-goers. He was undoubtedly the "star" of the night and even overrode his well-polished performance in the earlier play, as the "Young Boy." David is guilty-consciously pendulated for "brief moments" between Maggie and his other sister, Liz, married to John, for "we have our own lives to live", or have they, frankly? Troy Manatunge delivers a superb Maggie - poised, shutting out or reaching for her retarded brother at the right moments - a controlled guitar, plucking its strings in brilliant timing. Jithendra Seneviratne, dicates an equally fine-tuned John and together with a generous dipping-in by Charith Wijewardena, Liz, and Irshad Hameed, Paul, the actors roll the play to its bruising anti-climax. The last glimpse of David, cross-legged on the floor, singing his own birthday song and blowing out the candles, while his siblings and brothers-in-law continue to rebound the responsibility of caring for him onto each other's lap. All alone. Somehow, "Progress", the third play of the collection, failed to impress, as the other two. Perhaps, the reason lies in the recurringly heard phrases or the theme, a much-hackneyed one in the present era. Or, Jithendra and Troy, having given their utmost to the earlier plays, had a burn-out in these last roles of Corrie, who invents destruction to prevent destruction, and his sister, Mrs. Meldon, the family and happiness of whom had to be sacrificed at the alter of "Men with broad views." Oh, those Men with broad views! Nevertheless, Black Dawn leaves remnants of a highly versatile production, with credits going to Vinodh Senadeera, Director; Jivan Goonetilleke, Producer, and the rest of the production team. To the Sri Lankan theatre-lovers, hungry for reflective, serious dramatics, the Dram-Soc of St. Thomas' College has pieced together an attempt worthy of the school's 130 year-old theatre tradition. |
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The complexity of the hour was gripping. A piercing knife-thrust
through the silent night. The eternal silence of the human mind, in the
hour of darkness "after midnight before dawn". Even in this
"age of light", the adage has continued to be true. The human
mind still remains to be a lamb led to slaughter, bowed in dysfunctional
muteness to the passions of the forces assailing it, dumb to the powers
simmering in its own corridors.
