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passion, laughter through surrealism and realism "The passions are overdone here - a bit beyond the ordinary. The love, the suppression, everything is so intense in this play that I wanted to do it. I have always found the dark sides of life attractive," says Kaushalya, speaking about the tragedy that she chose to mark her advent into direction. Says the poet Pedro Salinas of the play where two lovers would give up everything, life itself, for some moments together, "Blood Wedding gives body, dramatic realization and the category of great art to a concept of human life borne along time's length in a people's innermost being and traditionally remembered and kept alive in it: the concept of human fatality." Kaushalya's direction seems to be based on what Lorca's brother, Fransico says of his drama - that "Laughter and tears, tears above all, run through all his poetry”. Though a tragedy, the director has incorporated much light and laughter to the drama, specially in the first part - so that the dark desire and the suppressed emotions of the lovers are more starkly contrasted to what is around them. "I visualized this play as a semi-musical and in it, I wanted the actors dancing, not dancers acting," says Kaushalya. In this, she was fortunate to have her husband, Chandana Palitha Aluthge in charge of choreography for as she says, "Because we communicate so well, it was possible for him to bring the movements that I had in mind to the stage." The beauty of the music of young Nadeeka Guruge too adds to the profundity of the experience, where music, dance and drama seem to fuse with effortless ease. Yet performers of any art would know of the hard work that would go to making something look effortless. The actors are drawn from the "Sri Lanka Children's and Youth Theatre Organization" also called the Play House, founded by her mother, Somalatha Subasinghe and in which Kaushalya herself plays a great part in the training. They display much professionalism and dedication to the art of drama and the seriousness with which they regard their art is apparent while watching them rehearse. Kaushalya's different take on the interpretation of the play is apparent in her choice of actors to play the characters as well. One would expect the husband, whom the wife leaves on the day of the wedding, to be somewhat unattractive, but he isn't - and thereby the uncontrollable passion of the two lovers for each other is further emphasized. The suppression of desire, and its ultimate outpouring, is brought out as a fine undercurrent running right throughout the play, by the main actors, well supported by the cast. Translated as Sanda langa maranaya (Death beside the Moon), by Kaushalya herself and Nadee Kammallaweera, this drama marks a turning point for Kaushalya and one hopes that this is the starting point of a director who will make a significant contribution to Sinhala theatre. "In my own small way, I will try to get audiences back to the theatre. It is really not the case that the public here has rejected theatre as an art form - it is only that we lack the mechanisms to get drama to the people specially outside the city centres - even though there is a demand for it," she says. "But drama is my way of expressing myself. I have to do it and I do it." Acting and even direction is not new to Kaushalya, who has been involved in drama almost from babyhood. She has been assisting in direction for years, in the plays of Somalatha Subasinghe and even in Lorca earlier, when Ranjini Obeysekera directed the Sinhala version of The House of Bernanda Alba in the 1990s. "But when you are assisting, it is only someone else's version that you work to create on stage. But for the first time now I am creating what my mind visualized when I was reading the script." This play operates at many levels. There is a political element to be brought out, as the Spanish playwright speaks about the conditions of Spanish peasant society with the place given in it to women, to family honour and pride at that time, in this tragedy. Kaushalya has effectively played upon both the feminist and Spanish elements of the play - the music and dance especially capturing the flavours of Spain. The play also blends reality with a degree of surrealism - and specially the latter half of the play has characters like the Moon and Death eerily haunting the stage along with the "real" figures. So to say that Blood Wedding could not have been an easy play to direct is to state the obvious. But with veteran actors like Somalatha Subasinghe and Lucian Bulathsinghala and younger extremely talented players like Chamila Pieris, Wisvajith Gunesekera, Prasanna Mahagamage and Nadee Kammallaweera all putting in their best effort, this play will probably succeed in making a stunning impact on the audience. |
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