Launch of Sinhala translation of Bertolt Brecht play
Inside the rough hewn walls of that magnified ant hill down Cottta Road, the Namel Malini Punchi Theatre, a few people had come together recently to applaud a new Sinhala translation of Bertolt Brecht.
The Rifles of Senora Carrar, a play Brecht had adapted from JohnMillington Synge’s 1904 play Riders to the Sea, had been wrought into “Regena Avi Mamada Emi” (“I too will come with arms”) by Dr. Michael Fernando.
From left: Dr. Saumya Liyanage, Prof. J.B. Disanayake, Indika Ferdinando and Dr. Michael Fernando. Pic by Amila Gamage
Dr. Fernando, the pleasant don with a goatee and an ever-present twinkle in his eye, invited the ‘chair’ of the evening, Prof. J.B. Disanayake, and the two guest speakers, Dr. Saumya Liyanage and Indika Ferdinando, to take over the stage for a short introduction to Brechtian drama.
The three academics, one representing a distinguished older generation and the two younger scholars proved to be a worthy choice. Between them they presented Brecht as digestibly as possible, though things did get a bit wordy when the speakers had to use belaboured Sinhala terms to explain simple things.
Dr. Liyanage, who is an actor of repute apart from being an academic, stressed that for Brecht, the theatre was a representation of reality and not ‘reality itself’. Brecht wanted his audience to realise this, so that they will believe that change for the better is always possible.
Fernando’s short lecture, which followed Liyanage’s, centred on one theoretical work written by Brecht titled ‘A Short Organum for the theatre’. Fernando pointed out how ‘pleasure’ and ‘entertainment’ were the key words in ‘A Short Organum’.
“So the idea that there is a ‘hierarchy’, with tragedy at the helm and comedy at the lowest level, was never accepted by Brecht,” Dr. Fernando stated.
The launch, which began with copies of the translation being handed over to Dharmasiri Banadaranayake and Somalatha Subasinghe, two of the most distinguished thespians in the island today, was followed by a performance of “Regena avi” directed by Dharmajit Punarjeeva.