Sunday Times 2
‘The Dictator’ comes to Lionel Wendt
Ralahamy is at it again. The last time this character of H.C. N De Lanerolle’s conjuring entertained an audience with his preoccupation of becoming Ceylon’s supreme dictator was in October last year at the Punchi Theatre in Borella. Next Sunday, veteran director Namel Weeramuni will take his production of ‘The Dictator’ to the Lionel Wendt.
Namel Weeramuni
“It’s always better to change the location” he says, as it allows for a lesson in adapting not that his cast of Malini Weeramuni as Hamine, DayaTennekoon as Mahathaya and Wijeratne Warakagoda as the incomparable Ralahamy, need this lesson. The Wendt, Weeramuni says, is an old favourite, on par with the former King’s Hall at the University of Colombo, which provided backdrop for his first glimpses of renowned thespians of an era past.
In fact he shares it was at the Wendt that as a junior in the acting scene he was cast to play “one of the grave-diggers in Hamlet” under the direction of Earnest MacIntyre in the 1960s. Returning this year as director, to the familiar atmosphere he jokingly implies that it’s an unwritten rule among contemporary theatre-goers that the only English plays worth their time, happen at the Wendt.
The political satires of today he feels extract laughs by sinking to unnecessarily low grounds. With The Dictator however, jokes come at no particular person’s expense, rather at an entirety of a pretentious class. ”A director’s job” he feels is to present the playwright’s work, with added artistry. Hugely appreciative of De Lanerolle’s brand of humour and dramatic style, Namel Weeramuni hopes to keep the authenticity in his interpretation of The Dictator at the Lionel Wendt next Sunday, February 7 at 7 p.m. Tickets are available at the venue.