|
|
 |
 |
| Sunday, 9 November 2003 |
 |
|
 |
Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
30 + 5 = A Celebration! The Mariazelle Show Sri Lanka's singing sensation Mariazelle Goonetilleke, is all geared to enthral her numerous fans at a mega concert at the BMICH next week. This not-to-be-missed concert brings together top names like Sohan Weerasinghe, Dalreen Suby, Wathsala Goonetilleke, Bathiya and Santhush, Piyal Perera and Chandral Fonseka on stage and backed by 'Kings'. Plus more surprises, from personalities in the audience. Going down memory lane, Mariazelle recalls that her father Rajah Goonetilleke was her first, strongest and main inspiration. "My Dad was the 'wind beneath my wings' till he passed away", she says. "I remember, as a very young child, being hauled out of bed at 5.30 in the morning. After my morning ablutions, I had to do my vocalizing, guitar scales, and then rehearse every song I knew. Criticism was always constructive and came free in large doses. This was a daily routine. It all began due to my Dad's perseverance and faith in me. This was probably because no one could stop me from singing all the time. He would jokingly tell friends that I might have been 'accidentally vaccinated with a gramophone needle'. When she entered the "Observer Talent Search - Junior Section" in 1969/70, the headlines in the following week's Observer were "Mariazelle - the little girl with the big voice and guitar higher than her". The article said, "....... She is bound to be a winner ......". That prediction is now true. Seven years later in 1977, the recording and release of 'Kandy Lamissi' proved to be the virtual turning point in her career. The song was an instant hit which resulted in her being affectionately and popularly known as 'Kandy Lamissi'. "I also remember with fond gratitude, the late Clarence Wijewardene who changed my style of singing by composing songs like Yowun Sihina Loke etc., and giving me a different path to travel on. Many were the songs this composer created solely for me and almost all of them have been hits. In fact I'll be performing many of them on the show", she said. Also teaming up with Mariazelle and her guest performers on stage will be Chandana Wickremasinghe, Rajini Selvanayagam, Pradeepa Ariyawansa and El Latino with their exciting and colourful Latin American and modern oriental dance routines. Sponsored by The Sunday Observer, Sarasaviya, Sun FM and Hiru FM, "30+5=A Celebration" is presented by the Three Roses Sports and Welfare Club in Kalubowila, Dehiwela in aid of Ward 16 of the Colombo South National Hospital at Kalubowila. ############# Kandy Lamissi The simple catchy tune that became a nation-wide hit "Kandy Lamissi was essentially born from an idea that influenced my childhood"says Mariazelle. "My home was one of parties, parties and more parties. It was during those animated evenings on the front verandah at No. 27, Ekanayake Mawatha that I heard a version of Kandy Lamissi whose lyrics I did not quite understand. I somehow remembered this infectious though simple melody through the years". "At age 17, I decided to rewrite this song with the support and help of a dear friend Asith Chandrasena (now domiciled in the USA). Thank you Kitto, for the part you played. I began singing this with the band I was performing with at the time. The year was 1976, Kandy Lamissi became an instant and roaring hit. "The same year, my Dad decided that I should make a recording of it. It was my father who found a producer and set the recording dates with the late Wijepala Hettiarachchi of Gemtone Records. The song was first released on 45 rpm and had, in addition to the title song, 'Rana Monara' and on its flip side a six-minute song title of Lokay Watay. "This was the first time that a six-minute song had been sung and recorded. It was a challenge in itself! The rest is history. I am very happy that Kandy Lamissi is a hit even to this day", says Mariazelle. ############# A truly creative Hamlet : The 1992 production Gamini Haththotuwegama invests his inimitable style in a fresh version of Hamlet, scheduled for November 14 at the Lionel Wendt as part of its jubilee celebrations. by Ashley Halpe Gamini Haththotuwegama's Hamlet and the Dream which he co-directed and then directed in a fresh version were highly eclectic, drawing on the Nadagam, Kolam and Nrti styles of the Sinhala theatre, on the director's substantial experience of the political street drama which he developed for Sri Lanka, and on some British and continental models and readings. The eclecticism was not self-conscious but gave, rather, an effect of total spontaneity, the stylistic choices always seeming appropriate metaphors for the content at each given point. Both were played in the round, even conventional theatres being adapted so that the audience surrounded the actors on every side - the normal situation in street performance. To take a 'western' element of this production first: in the rendering of Hamlet's scene with his mother, for example. Hamlet addressed her with an intensity and force, and a freedom and roughness of physical contact that inevitably reminded us of Freudian readings of the relationship, and were, in fact, offensive to more tradition-oriented members of our audiences quite as much as they were at variance with probable practice in Shakespeare's theatre, or in Shakespeare's society. The effect was considerably reinforced when this Hamlet straddled his mother at the climax of his pleading. Yet the treatment was quite appropriate to this production's reading of the personality of the prince as a forceful, quick-witted and indeed athletic young man, not notably aristocratic in behaviour and bearing and quite free in his exchanges with his friends - a rendering well within the gamut of available interpretation. Costume was on the whole a poor man's version of vaguely Elizabethan attire and accoutrement. Hamlet was clad in the English theatre's traditional black with the locket holding his father's picture conspicuous on his chest. The fencing match was carefully choreographed by an instructor in swordsmanship. The Elizabethan and the Nrti modes overlapped, for the Nrti, which derived from nineteenth century English melodrama as imitated by Parsee professionals, went in for colourful archaism and gestural hyperbole. Correspondingly, the gesture and gait of the principals exhibited a degree of non-realistic stylization as typical of Nrti as of popular notions of Elizabethan acting which totally overlook Hamlet's advice to the players. The players tumbled and mimicked as in the Kolam folk theatre of southern Sri Lanka and two clowns used the loose-jointed, head-swinging, limb-flapping dance of the Kolam Bahuboothaya (essentially a clown-figure). The stylized, semi-ritualistic entry of each major character in Nadagam was used for the entrance of the Player King and the Player Queen. The most pervasive Sri Lankan component, however, was the Lankan street theatre mode developed by Gamini Haththotuwegama himself for the dramatization of current issues and for political commentary. Its spirit permeated the performances and was concretized in the improvisatory effect of a great deal of movement and by-play. The entrance of Claudius with the Queen and his retinue in scene II was very much in this vein, having a carefree informality that was most engaging. They appeared to be fresh from a carouse and rushed in with nothing of the courtly formality usually associated with this scene. The King actually sat on the edge of the northern platform briefly before moving centre and then to the eastern part of the playing area with the Queen to sit on the "thrones" (roughly decorated chairs) placed for them. Yet he was able to make a very smooth transition at that point to commanding attention and then rendered his opening speech with an appropriate regard to its rhetoric. With another transition he unbent to Hamlet, moving right over to the southwest corner of the playing space where Hamlet had taken up his malcontented stance. The players made a very similar entrance through the audience on the western side of the playing area. Such moves occurred right through the play causing continuous reorientation of the audience in relation to the action. Thus scene I with the meeting of Bernardo and Francisco began behind the major part of the audience, which was on the southern side and then moved through the audience on the east to arrive in the north-central area for the narration sequence. The Ghost appeared at three points of the compass in turn, northeast, northwest and southwest. The chorus which was introduced for Ophelia's death started out in the garden on the west near a massive tree and slowly moved to the western side of the acting area. This fluidity of action went along with a fine plastic sense of theatrical space in regard to planes and levels. Though this production was toured to a variety of audiroria, some effort was made to work on about three levels, more being used as available. This combined with the playing in the round and the flow of the action in all directions across the central playing space to give a tremendous dynamism to the whole design. The translation itself was fresh and lively. Done by Gamini Haththotuwegama, Gamini Fonseka Edirisinghe and Lakshman Fernando, it was altered and redesigned as rehearsals progressed. These characteristics combined with three others to demonstrate the validity of the "rough theatre" concept of Peter Brook to Shakespeare performance. These three others were the rough and ready appearance of the costume, the improvisatory effect that often came across and the frank acceptance of the youth of the performers - only Mr. Haththotuwegama himself, playing Claudius, was over twenty-five. Though Polonius, for instance, was given a bit of makeup and beard. No attempt was made to age his voice and movement though he gave an effect of being an older man through a kind of addiction to mannerisms. Gertrude was played by two feisty young women. (There were two Hamlets and Gertrudes playing on alternate nights). Fluid, "rough", dynamic, this production liberated Shakespeare, a feeling given, too, with the audience on three sides and quite close. One had a sense of what it might have been like in Shakespeare's day to have the audience close up and all around, at different levels and very visible, while audiences saw how truly plastic and "whole" performance in the round or on thrust stages could be. Both performers and audiences perceived that "rough" and "improvisatory" did not connote "unprepared" and "haphazard," that in fact this theatre required prepared, alert and responsive actors and wide-awake, adaptive audiences. |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security Produced by Lake House |
