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Punaragamanaya;
a psychological story
Talented Thusitha de Silva is one of the few teledrama directors
who could come out with something new to Sri Lankan teledrama scene.
His latest effort on 'Punaragamanaya' is now telecast on Thursday
at 9 pm on Swarnavahini channel.
The
story of Punaragamanaya is based on the short story 'Visitor' written
by prolific Sri Lankan authoress Punyakanthi Wijenayake.
This teleplay has a technical crew of some leading and versatile
people in the film field. Script for the miniplay is written by
experienced script writer Somaweera Senanayke while Dr. Premasiri
Khemadasa has handled the music. The others in the technical crew
are Sujeewa Goonaratne as art director, Sanjaya Nipunarachchi as
make up artist, G. Nandasena as director of photography with Manjula
Malwatte handling the editor's pen. Ruwan Mendis and Aruna Mendis
produced 'Punaragamanaya' for which assistance in direction by Priyantha
Fernando.
After her husband's death a beautiful woman Irene Dias (Meena Kumari)
starts to live with her husband's soul. In her young age Irene had
a love affair with her boy friend Carl (Douglas Ranasinghe) and
but could not marry him. She was able to marry him only in her middle
years.
They had a very happy married life. Unfortunately her husband was
killed by an unknown gunman, after five years of married life.
Carl, Irene's husband was an estate superintendent. Irene was engaged
in welfare work in an estate. When her husband died, Irene left
the estate to live in an annexe in a large bungalow. Amara (Malani
Weeramuni) and her husband (Suminda Sirisena) and their only son
lived in this bungalow. A young eccentric Tamil domestic with her
strange ways also lived in this bungalow.
Amara is a dictator in her bungalow. She always suspected the middle-aged
beautiful Irene. She suspected Irene because she thought her husband
or son has an affair with her.
When Irene's husband's astral body started to haunt this eerie bungalow
the whole place turned upside down and dramatic incidents occur.
The thirty-two episodic teledrama has Douglan Ranasinghe, Meena
Kumari, Suminda Sirisena, Malani Weeramuni, Neil Alles, Tharindu
Wijesinghe, Manjula Thilini, Nuvangi Liyanage, Giriraj Kaushalya
and Chinthak in its stellar cast.
Thusitha's role
A student of Ananda College Thusitha did his studies in the science
stream. At the end of his Advanced Level in 1979 he produced his
maiden direction a stage play titled "Para Wasa Etha"
and this brought him the attention of the school audience.
This was followed by directing short films and also gave him an
opportunity to join filmmaker Pathiraja L. S. Dayananda to assist
in his movies. Thusitha did his first a teledrama in 1990 and this
was an experiment using 3D (three dimensional) technology. However
it was his second and third teledramas Uththamavi and Punchirala
which won him real recognition.
Speaking about his latest 'Punaragamanaya', Thusitha says 'It is
a completely different style of teledrama revolving around some
strange characters".
"At times it is sort of a psychological analysis of certain
characters. I think some of the characters I came across in Hitchcock's
films influenced me design certain characters here," said Thusitha
analysing his teledrama.
"To create this background situation we had to use different
techniques like unique style of costumes and also the location.
The main location an Irish style bungalow 'Ire Estate' situated
in a rubber estate in Padukka helped a lot to create this atmosphere,"
the director described at length.
Thusitha also was glad about his cast, Meena Kumari who played the
main role and others Suminda Sirisena and Malani Weeramuni and Douglas
Ranasinghe who had supported him to complete the drama successfully.
"The other component that played a key role for the success
of the drama was Dr. Premasiri Khemadasa's music. We had to spend
a number of days watching the drama over and over again to compose
a suitable music. Most important thing is that 'Master' was very
careful about every detail and a good example was that he wanted
to have the violinist, Luxman Josheph de Saram. Master insisted
that it was the playing style of Mr. de Saram that suited certain
scenes of the play and we had to change the recording to suit the
convenience of Mr. De Saram who was available only on Mondays"
Thuitha said.
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