DRAMA Review

Raja Mang Vahala:

A theatrical critique gone awry

by Dilshan Boange

A five-actor ensemble garbed in a somewhat gypsy costume motif mounted the boards of the Tower Hall theatre on March 21 to unfold Chamika Hathlahawatte's theatrical creation Raja Mang Vahala. As a play performed in the proscenium it was akin to a street drama, with the narrators/players themselves playing a band of roaming performers reminiscent of times when bards roamed the countryside singing epic tales of legendary heroes. I couldn't help but feel there was somewhat patronising tone in the opening of the play, where the troupe tell the audience the traditions of bards who composed and narrated great epics like the Iliad and Odyssey. It seems the playwright/director believes he has to historically validate to his audience the basis on which his work seeks to derive justification for purported 'theatre craft' and 'form'.

Rhythmic movements

The stagecraft for this play was based on improvising and devising stage props out of several blue plastic barrels and numerous lengths of fabric, while a guitar was used as part of the music generation. Drumming the barrels was very significant to the musicality woven into the performance and to this effect I couldn't help but notice how actor Sarath Karunaratne (aka 'Sara') who is superlatively skilled in generating percussion music seemed essential to his production.

The principal 'theatricality' of the work comes from the movement of players as they transform themselves into dancers and amateur acrobats. Their rhythmic movements, the musicality generated through both percussion and guitar strumming by Thilanka Gamage, and vocals added elements of showmanship. The performance's core is by and large a structure of oral narratives of three stories where the actors ask the audience to adjudge which of the protagonists comes out as the 'hero'. The narrative craft of the script rests on several players switching between them the lines of a common narrative, personifying what is somewhat like (the function of) the prose description in a novel, but played out by several live players.

The first of the three narrative tales is of an ugly slave destined to marry a princess, the second tells the story of young prince Gemunu who grows up to be Dutugemunu and the third of a schoolboy named Premathilaka, who on being spurned by his love interest murders her. The third story relates to a true incident that was reported in the press some time back.

Raja Mang Vahala makes a laborious attempt to create a critique for cotemporary Sri Lanka through drama, but delivers little in the fold of theatre craft. As a work for the proscenium, it demands far too much as a performance that runs for two hours resting on a modus operandi lacking creative investment, banking on oral storytelling creating the fundamental premise of a verbal discourse divided as dialogue between players who switch between the characters they describe, and also monologues addressing the audience directly. But of course the players did perform as actors who interspersed theatrical actions to complement the oral output. What was thus shown goes back to the primitivism of what theatre began for rustic masses of ages past.

Vilified and demonised

Raja Mang Vahala had clownish antics that at time made the basis for comedic theatrics, but seemed utterly juvenile in certain instances, as for example in the first of the trio of stories. However, if one wants to look at what comedy can do to challenge established beliefs, a facet of it came out through the second 'story'. It was the story of King Dutugemunu from a prince to a king and what this historical figure signifies in relation to the Sinhala Buddhist ethos. Through their schema of theatrics, both oral and physical, the players vilified and demonised the legend of Prince Gemunu (who grows up to become King Dutugemunu). That I believe would be the meat of this work to offer some semblance of critique theatre.

The nonstop verbosity of the narrative method was times monotonous and an aural tedium. The chorus of song at the outset and towards the end showcase the players' commitment to 'entertain' and willingness to even 'dance till they bust their ribs'. One can't help wondering why the playwright felt the need to insert such 'expressions' to deliver the 'promise of entertainment'. One can't also help comparing Pujitha de Mel's Asinamaali with Raja Mang Vahala as a play that rests principally on its players' prowess to physically and orally deliver a script to captivate an audience. There is much to be learned from the former.

While Raja Mang Vahala shows it is assembled of varying elements from song to dance, musicality and theatrics of players that offer some 'threads' of entertainment and socio-political-cultural critique, the work is largely impoverished in its 'fabrication' to offer appreciable theatre.