||Spectrum

A drama addict's dream

Mungen Ang back on the boards on January 27,2007:

by Aditha Dissanayake

Ibsen is for all times wrote Lynn Ockersz in the Daily News recently. Proving this statement to be true, Namel Weeramuni's adaptation of Ibsen's Enemy of the People as Mungen Ang will go on the boards once more on January 27, 2007 at 6.45pm at the Punchi Theatre, Borella.

For the uninitiated, An Enemy of the People is one of several Ibsen dramas that are sometimes referred to as problem plays because they centre on social problems and controversial community issues.

A realistic stage drama in five acts, the play depicts ordinary life as it is and not as one would like it to be. Though published in 1882, like all good classics the work reflects the problems faced by the masses regardless of time or place.

Realistic yet precise

Like Ibsen who wanted to make his plays uncompromisingly realistic, (he wrote the dialogue in simple, everyday, middle-class language rather than the elegant, lofty, or trope-laden sentences characteristic of romantic plays) Namel Weeramuni too, uses everyday Sinhala in his adaptation; yet, in mimicking vernacular speech, chooses and arranges his words carefully; so much so that, every word and every sentence counts. i.e "Me jalasaya ape nagaraye athmaya bawata path wevi (The pool will become the soul of our town).

So too the stage. In keeping with the realistic plot and dialogue, the stage sets of Mung gen Ang, resemble the furnishings of everyday life. Ordinary chairs, ordinary tables...ordinary people going about their ordinary lives.

Among the several themes depicted in the play is the truism, truth must not be hidden, diluted, or altered even when it goes counter to the wishes of the majority. In other words, what matters is not what everyone thinks or wants, but what is right.

Thus in Act I the Mayor (Asela Serasinghe) criticizes the assertion of the individual-will on society by saying "The individual ought undoubtedly to acquiesce in subordinating himself to the community or, to speak more accurately, to the authorities who have the care of the community's welfare." And in so doing, sets up the clash later in the play with his brother, who indeed asserts his will.

Through the Mayor and his supporters the drama portrays how, seemingly upright citizens will compromise their morals when their wallets and livelihoods are threatened.

All that glitters is not gold - the town's leading citizens are outwardly attractive but inwardly repulsive.

The story of one man's brave struggle to do the right thing and speak the truth in the face of extreme societal intolerance, one has to watch Mung gen Ang to the end to decide if it is a comedy or a straight drama. With its many traits of comedy, yet, based on a serious idea the play is bound to turn out to be every drama addicts dream.