Lankan thespians do justice to US classic

By Dilshan Boage

"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers" is the famed line A Streetcar named Desire gives its audience as "After all, tomorrow is another day" is what stamps an impactful ending in Gone with the Wind. In this world to which we are initially born as strangers, what becomes of those who cannot forge sufficient bonds that can sustain survival? A Streetcar named Desire spurs stinging after thoughts about how people become strangers in the face of powerful social forces as class and morality, and how estrangements can mean termination from certain social spheres.

On July 19, sitting in the gentle darkness, I watched the much celebrated stage drama by US playwright Tennessee Williams come alive on the boards at the Lionel Wendt as a directorial vision of Jerome L. de Silva gained colour, form and flesh. One of my initial impressions about what The Workshop Players unfolded on stage was the stage set that contained 'spaces' that would be both 'depicted' and 'signalled' in the course of the narrative.

I say this because while certain spaces such as the principal premises of the Kowalski household is centrally visual and occupies pride of place on stage, spaces such as the bowling alley patronised by Stanley Kowalski and his friends was a location set in the background, behind the 'domestic set up', not as prominently visible to the audience, but at times didn't maintain its unobtrusiveness and 'signalled' its potency as a space brimming with human activity through robust laughter and vocal sounds.

Stage space use

The efficient use of the physical space on stage, usually defining the parameters of the premise of the performance, must be masterfully done if a drama director is to deliver optimally from the proscenium.

Jerome L. de Silva thus showed his prowess in utilising stage space maximally. From the audience vantage, looking at the merits of the elaborate stage set it was as though the stage was turned to a 'canvas' on which the director had created an 'installation'. The neon signs hanging in the background at a height that indicated the symbolic purpose of projecting shades of the New Orleans jazz culture showed skilled use of stage space that is visible to the viewer, which significantly enriched the texture of the play's visual dimension.

Being a multilingual country when one thinks of Sri Lankan theatre, one may reasonably wonder as a layman what salient ingredients would be definitive of a theatre production to qualify as a work of 'Sri Lankan theatre'. Should the play be written by a Sri Lankan? Should the story and plot have an identifiable Sri Lankan facet to it in terms of theme and, or, setting? If it is an English language play should the performers speak in a manner and accent familiarly Sri Lankan? If that be the case then what I watched on July 19 this year won't qualify as a work of Sri Lankan theatre.

Labelling Sri Lankan theatre

I tend to look at it more from the functional aspects related to the 'manpower' that brings it to life as theatre. A play directed and performed by Sri Lankans in one of the three main language media used in the country, would in my perspective be a work of Sri Lankan theatre.

Therefore, as much as the southern US accent is foreign to us, the fact that it was 'performed' for an audience by Sri Lankan players under the direction of a Sri Lankan director, in my opinion, would render the drama I watched a work of Sri Lankan theatre.

It is after all reasonably arguable that what the Stella and Blanch viewed that night at the Lionel Wendt may not have delivered what would be impeccably quintessential southern US pronunciation.

One notable instance being, to me, was when Blanch exclaimed the word 'eureka' as the house key was found after an evening out with Mitch. It was to my ears the very familiar Sri Lankan pronunciation and not what one may expect in the mould of the southern US accentuation which would possibly render it sounding more like -Eureeka.

Southern US accenting

On the matter of 'accenting' it was noticeable that not all players delivered a distinctly US manner of enunciation.

While Blanch and Stella principally held sway over the overall language tonal identity of the play's setting being depictive of a US scenario, it were at times the more emotively intense moments in the narrative that brought out the 'US English' rather 'pronouncedly' in Stanley.

And Mitch's vocals were not in US English 'gear' from the very start either.

The manner in which the social schema of New Orleans and its 'street culture' was manifested through miming characters, such as Chinthaka Fernando taking on the personae of an off duty sailor at a dance hall and doubling as a jazzy looking saxophonist added colour to the play to bring out the hubbub and ragtag that made New Orleans a collage of diverse social elements, which one may assume is quite explosive in its human mosaic of cultural variance compared to the affluent southern plantation culture from which the Du Bois sisters Stella and Blanch originate.

An old woman selling roses and a purveyor of bread rolls loudly added their voices to thrust at the audience the jarring atmosphere of the street bound life of people living in low income housing into which Blanch arrives.

Blanch by Bimsara

Bimsara Premaratne delivered what was a praiseworthy performance as Blanch Du Bois. The thick skinned pretentiousness of an ageing 'Southern Belle' still teeming with desire to be 'desired', while putting on an aloft demeanour with a silkiness assertive of a greatly 'cultured being', came out convincingly as Bimsara moved between moods and moments that required to bring out the character of Blanch as both a person who possibly secretly yearned for catharsis but was shackled much stronger to the sweetness of a self deceiving delusion.

The first time I saw the Bimsara act on stage was when she portrayed the lead role in a Musaeus College production of Gogol's The Government Inspector in 1998.

At the point she spoke with a partially vacant look in her eyes gazing afar while talking to Shanuki de Alwis playing Stella, showing how Blanch had by then lost her mind, it was clear that Bimsara's involvement in theatre has been 'a calling'.

Shanuki de Alwis, the more seasoned of the two actresses who commendably brought to life Stella in the play, showed in her acting very markedly the contrast between the two Du Bois sisters who were very clearly estranged in the 'cultural moulds' the two characters wear.

Stella was clearly portrayed as the housewife who had been set into the world of the rugged Kowalski and was denied the drive in her persona to make allusions to her former self.

The subdued demeanour shown by Stella as the central pulse of her character, wasn't however void of the inner spark to throw out 'dynamite' as and when the narrative coursed her character to do so.

Raging Stanley

"Lung power" as Blanch rightly calls it, was what Mario De Soyza brought in to personify and define to a great extent the character of Stanley Kowalski. The 'lung power' displayed was truly impressive.

The restive violent (im)pulse within Stanley was brought out with quickness that was all pervasive and commanding. But there was in some instances a sense in Stanley's outbursts showing a subtle sense of being delivered somewhat on queue.

This leads me to wonder if the element of menace that Stanley creates in the two rooms and a bathroom dwelling was constructed primarily on the lung power factor.

De Soyza appeared to rely on it greatly. But the element of 'menace' as a factor which shapes the atmosphere and emotions of the characters can be achieved through silence and expressions of restrained anger as well.

The 'ape' that Blanch claims Stanley is, is in certain ways, the image of the savage secretly desired by heterosexual women seeking the apex of raw carnal pleasure.

But this would never be admitted by Blanch who must play the role she presents, whereas, through a poetry of her own, Stella gives insight about what magnetised her to Stanley and keeps her drawn to him -the sheer power of the raw masculine prowess he manifests on her body and satisfies her desires.An applause worthy production

The play unfolds a compelling critique on the hypocrisies of US society in the light of class and morality as factors that determined the worth of an individual.

The story also explores as to what desire means to people at the level of physical pleasure as well as what desire means in terms of an individual's aspirations to be 'society worthy'.

The play is ripe with politics that relate to wealth, class, gender and sex, and thereby raises questions about the idealised conceptions about 'the great American dream'.

And the play brought to life by The Workshop Players for Sri Lankan theatregoers must be applauded as a fruitful endeavour to bring to the Wendt a US classic through the talents of Sri Lankan theatre practitioner.