She came, she conquered both stage and screen
View(s):Trail blazing actress Irangani Serasinghe turns 90 on June 21. Here D.C. Ranatunga looks back on her amazing career that included the Sinhala and English art scenes
Chirang Jayatu! Greetings to the Kumarihamy of Sri Lanka’s stage and screen who turns 90 on June 21. Hers is a unique ‘dramatic career’. True to her pet name Chandi, the mischievous one, she conquered the Sinhala and English stage and screen – both big and small.
As an undergrad aged 21, Irangani Meedeniya first appeared on stage in ‘The Second Mrs Tanqueray’ produced by Prof. Cuthbert Amerasinghe. Then she had the lead role in ‘Antigone’. Prof. Lyn Ludowyke’s ‘Twins’ followed. In the ‘Pageant of Lanka’ staged for Independence, she played Sita opposite Chitrasena in ‘Rama, Ravana & Sita’ produced by Seebert Dias, Chitrasena’s father – the notable Tower Hall dramatist. She went on to study drama at the Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol, and at the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art in London.
If my memory serves me right my first glimpse of Irangani was at the Peradeniya campus in the early 1950s. She was then married to Prof. S.B. Dissanayake, Professor of Dentistry and the couple lived in the university quarters below Marrs Hall. They later divorced and Irangani married an old friend, ruggerite/actor Winston Serasinghe.
The opening of the Lionel Wendt Theatre in December 1953 saw her in its maiden production, Maxim Gorky’s ‘The Lower Depths’ playing Nashtya, the prostitute, directed by Newman Jubal, the Hungarian expatriate then living in Australia (having escaped the Nazi holocaust), who came on the invitation of Prof. Ludowyke. After ‘Macbeth’, it was the ‘Stage & Set’ production, ‘The Caucasian Chalk Circle’ directed by Ernest McIntyre, my contemporary at Peradeniya.
Iranganie Serasinghe in Chalk Circle
By then Irangani felt disappointed by the divide between the Sinhala theatre and the English theatre. “Many of us thought that it was ridiculous that artistes should be divided by language, artistes of the same country. There was no denying that there was a cultural difference, we who were educated in English had a kind of bastardised culture – ‘thuppahi’, as Philip Gunawardena called it. Nevertheless we were, I think, creative, vibrant and active,” Irangani recalls that era in ‘Memories in a sieve’ she wrote for ‘Applause at the Wendt’ – the Theatre’s golden jubilee publication, edited by Neville Weeraratne, renowned painter/author.
She was jubilant when the Art Centre Club was formed at the Wendt. “The much-longed-for-happening took place: Sinhala theatre and English language theatre got together…. Actors, dancers, singers, photographers, painters, architects, musicians and writers. An evening at the Art Centre Club was a gloriously stimulating experience. And since the theatre itself is an intermingling, a cohesion of all the arts, what a contribution it was for our own theatre!” she reminisces.
Referring to the “flowering of the Sinhala theatre then”, she found great hope and inspiration from Dr. Sarachchandra (starting with ‘Maname’ and ‘Sinhabahu’), Henry Jayasena, Dayananda Gunawardena, Dhamma Jagoda, R.R. Samarakone, Sugathapala de Silva, to name a few. As for the English theatre, she says: A very active ex-university group, Stage & Set burst to the Lionel Wendt with a bang. Led by Ernest McIntyre, Haig Karunaratne, Shelagh Jansen (now Goonewardene), Karan Breckenridge, Sriyantha Senaratna and others naturally and joyously forged the link between English and Sinhala theatres.”
If not for this ‘happening’, we may not have been able to enjoy Irangani’s presence in Sinhala theatre and cinema. After the doors of Lionel Wendt were opened for ‘Maname’, those involved with Sinhala theatre felt ‘wanted’ there. As an active member of the Art Centre Club Irangani urged them to come over and enjoy an evening. She mingled with them making them feel at home.
Sinhala theatre
Henry Jayasena was the first to approach Irangani to act in one of his plays. It was mid-1968. I was then on the Observer. We had a headline story about a university student committing suicide because of poverty. His mother worked at a quarry from morning till night trying to earn a living. Henry J made this the theme of ‘Apata Puthe Magak Nathe’ with Irangani playing the role of the helpless mother, Ranmenika. “As I was writing the script, I was picturing Irangani. Her face and lean body were ideal for the mother’s role. For the son’s character, my choice was Douglas Ranasinghe,” Henry writes in his autobiography,’Nim Netghi Kathawak 2’. “I was correct. Both did their roles exactly the way I thought they would. They were excellent”.
Henry recalls the last scene in the drama where the mother poignantly begs the son’s pardon and asks him why he didn’t have a little more patience taking a cue from her. “Wherever I was – whether inside or outside the hall – I never missed watching this scene…. She did it with so much feeling. I think Irangani did this role over a hundred times. Every time I watched, I was simply dazed. With a few words she created a whole world on stage. Here was a mother who, in spite of losing her only son spoke with restraint and pride how she would continue her struggle to live without bowing down to injustice and unfairness. I myself gained so much courage from this wonderful actress,”he writes. What more can a director say!
The play was first banned – the first time a Sinhala drama faced a ban by the government, but was later allowed. Within six months there were 50 shows.
Irangani was to show her talent in two other Sinhala dramas – Dhamma Jagoda’s ‘Ves Muhunu & ‘Porisadaya’. She also acted in several more English plays including Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ & ‘Othello’ while being a journalist at the Times of Ceylon.
On to cinema
Irangani broke into cinema in 1955 when Lester James Peries picked her for the short film, ‘Be Safe or Be Sorry’ he did for the Traffic Police. The following year, she was in the ‘Rekava’ team – the first Sinhala film to be filmed outdoors. In her autobiography ‘Irangani’, she recalls how when not many approved Lester’s idea of shooting outdoors, he went ahead. “Even the sound was recorded outside. This guy managed marvellously in spite of crows and ‘kohas’, the dogs and the chicken. There was just no dubbing. Today everything is dubbed.” Winston too acted in the film.
Playing a village mother in her first feature film, she was adjudged Best Actress (1956) at the Lankadeepa Deepa Shika film awards – the only awards at the time. Lester picked her for his later films – ‘Sandeshaya’(1960), ‘Delovak Atara’ (1966), ‘Ran Salu’ (1967), ‘God King’ (1976), ‘Avaragira’ (1995) & ‘Wekande Walauwa’ (2003). She won the Sarasaviya Best Actress award in two successive years – in 1995 for Ranjith Kuruppu’s ‘Pavana Raluviya’ and in 1996 for ‘Avaragira’. Both were roles where she was an elderly woman. She was Best Supporting Actress at the Presidential Awards (1986) for her role in Chandran Ratnam’s ‘Adawra Kathawa’ and again in 1997 Sarasaviya Awardsin Sumitra Peries’ ‘Loku Duwa’.
As a character actress, she would take on challenging roles. Once she played a prostitute in a Govt. Film Unit documentary on social diseases. In ‘Kimihiriya Mal’ she was a ‘madam’ running a house of ill fame. Fans and relatives who expected her to play the loving motherly role all the time were shocked.
She acted in a host of other films which made her a known figure among the Sinhala film fans. However, it was the tele-dramas that brought her close to their hearts. Her start was in Parakrama Niriella’s ‘Yashorawaya’ scripted by Somawira Senanayake, who in the early days wrote some of the most meaningful and interesting tele-dramas.She played Sudu Hamine, Baladeva’s (Lucky Dias) mother portraying the housewife who had to make ends meet in the house, perfectly. In Nalan Mendis creation, ‘Doo Daruwo’, she was Dulcie, an ageing widow with Henry Jayasena playing the male lead as Sudu Seeya -another of Senanayake’s scripts that was also well received by viewers.
Theatre critic Haig Karunaratne points out that the ordinary person was able to identify with all her problems because she was able to give those characters the ability to suffer and show the qualities of endurance, compassion and understanding. He compared her to a juggler trying to balance the problems of the different children, trying to soothe them.
Her list of tele-dramas is quite long.
Nature lover
Apart from the arts, Irangani was passionate about the protection of the environment. I used to meet her often at Studio Times (in Fort – Times building) discussing with Nihal Fernando and Pat Dekker the need to conserve the environment. She founded ‘Ruk Rekaganno’ to prevent cutting down of trees for no purpose.
She talks about it in ‘Irangani’: “The rural people knew very well the importance of forests and water because of their importance to cultivation. They knew that the forest in the hills were important for water retention and how the soil gets washed off if there are no trees….With this name (‘Ruk Rekaganno’) it was much easier to go and talk to villagers and explain the importance of nature. We knew that it was no use saving the forests without the creatures and vice versa since they are interconnected. At that time the politicians thought that we were a bit mad. So did much of society. They took little digs at us in the newspapers and one actually called me ‘Hitha Honda Ammandi’. This didn’t deter me. I was involved in it because I truly believed in it.”
She tried hard to convince the authorities including ministers on the importance of conservation and amidst all the odds she carried on.
Shelagh Gunawardena summed up her career beautifully: “Irangani Serasinghe occupies a unique place in our theatre, combining in herself many of the significant elements in our dramatic tradition. She has had access to a professional training in English Speech and Drama, yet this has not cut her away from her native roots but rather, has enriched and strengthened them. An actress who invests the stage with dignity and meaning, whose performances fascinate an audience and instruct her fellow-actors simultaneously, she is one of the most completely dedicated and professional personalities in theatre, yielding performances that are at once technically assured and perfectly natural.” (‘Abhinaya’ Felicitation volume).
How true!