Don’t put all your egregiousness in one basket case
View(s):A funny thing happened on the way to the forum. The forum being not Parliament or any other legislative assembly, but the Lionel Wendt Auditorium. Or as the producers of Pusswedilla would call it, “Arsikland Nashnel Theatre – fomelly known as Lynel Went”. That night the event on was the third evening of Thank You For Voting Part 5: The Antire Solooshen Summit.
We were catapulted into cloud cuckoo land from the moment the tickets were in our hands. There, in larger than life argot, H. G. H. E. Chaminda Pusswedilla – the ‘honrable President of Arsikland’ – was to be found “welcumming oll of you to Arsikland, the mirackle of the world”.
You get the picture. We were at Colombo’s favourite dramatic offering put on for savvy audiences’ pleasure by Feroze Kamardeen & Co. AKA StageLight&Magic, now the purveyors of political satire.
Much to my own amazement, most surprisingly maybe, I enjoyed every egregious moment of madness!
What’s not to enjoy? There was politics and there was satire. There was pathos and there was stupefaction at the state of a certain nation: Arsikland, an imaginary banana republic where the worst excesses of a crooked corrupt cynical regime was the stern stuff ambition was made of. There was wit, wisdom, and wisecracks. There were gales of laughter, cause for lamentation, giggles by the bucket-load, and sage nodding of baleful heads half-not-knowing whether to laugh or cry. There was masterly control and over-the-top hamming commingled with ditzy dance routines and resurrected viral jokes which got an afterlife on these hilarious boards.
In short, Pusswedilla’s fifth outing proved (to me, at least) that there’s life in Colombo’s radical, artistic, republican quarter; to say nothing of its art-critiques-life school of stagecraft. Unbelievers may remain unwilling to suspend belief and might well choose to invoke the crass Mammon motive, but I say: “The king is dead… Long live the king!” Mere entertainment can take on the loftier tones and tinges of satire when the production is cleverly crafted and presented with such savoir faire. More power to it, say I! And I do hope that so say all of us?
Sadly, this was not to be the case… In the aftermath of Pusswedilla V, the Actress and I ventured – albeit belatedly – to a house party a stone’s throw away from the Went… I mean, the Wendt (see, Puss is infectious!). Yours truly made the cardinal mistake of mentioning that we had hied ourselves hence after that superb bit of satire. Imagine our surprise when our fellow partygoers were less than convinced of the raison d’etre and general relevance of the play…
One particular sceptical soul was all questions about the rationale as well as the ramifications of the production. “Satire? So what? What will change? Does it ever? Why bother with political caricatures?”
An interesting exchange of ideas (the Actress called it an altercation, and kept chiding us not to shout so loud) ensued. We (I mean me, of course) maintained that political satire was the mainstay of any healthy democracy. He (my assailant and protagonist) countered with a cross between a huff and a puff: “Democracy?” (Managing to work seven syllables into this most abused word…) – Needless to say, I (we) lost round one!
In round two I came back with a strong counter-attack: “Even if nothing will change, plays like this are well worth putting on because they give people hope…” – to which Mr Smart Alec’s retort was “False!” (Honourably – for discretion is the better part of valour, sir – I granted that he had a point after all.)
Round three was a close call. Citing the diehard spirit of the Battle of Britain (where so much was owed by so many to the valour of so few) and the old Norse heroes of Asgard who fought on – even when they knew for sure that the Gods were doomed, and facing a Twilight of their own – I averred that it is the stuff of historical oomph to struggle on when the fight naught availeth. To which my oppressor chuckled, “History? Mere myth! Legends! Old wives and warriors tales!”
It was time for my secret weapon. Looking my opponent squarely in the eye, I bellowed (not belligerently, as the Actress would have you believe) that it is a sorry fish who relies on political satire to achieve what law, lawmakers, executives, constitutions, judiciaries, and civic society have all so far so singularly and startlingly failed to achieve. One is happy to be able to report that my bête noire beat a hasty retreat at that riposte.
So I returned to my original thesis in the hearing of any who would give ear, and do so here. Let us plug away with the tools and trades and techniques available to us. Keep the faith. Watch the play. Don’t let your sense of being entertained by the likes of His Glorious Honourable Excellency Pusswedilla beguile you into thinking that life does not imitate – and tolerate – art. So that art may imitate life harmlessly enough. You get the idea… or do you? See Puss V. It may be one of the last opportunities you have to relish the egregious days.