Simple and powerful performances
This year’s award for the Best Actress was a joint award for Visakha Vidyalaya’s Yalindee Ratnapala and Devi Balika Vidyalaya’s Hasini Dissanayake. The Mirror catches up with both budding actresses.
Best Actress – Yalindee Ratnapala
“There’s way more to Hamlet than a man saying ‘to be or not to be,” – is how joint winner for best actress, Yalindee Ratnapala (17) sums up Visakha Vidyalaya’s take on the tragedy which scored them second place at the competition organised by by the Rotary Club of Colombo North together with the Colombo YMCA.
Yalindee Rathnapala. Pic by Priyantha Wickramaraaachi
The school’s version focused on Ophelia and her madness. The girls worked under director Chalana Wijesuriya, who marks his fourth year directing Visakha. Assisted by Chalana’s direction, Yalindee also took on ‘Sylvius’ in ‘As you like it’ (2013). “She’s not a stale character,” Yalindee says, adding “There’s a journey she must go on.” The lack of a maternal presence coupled with the only relationships we see with the men in her life tips her into the ultimate submission – madness. Yalindee reflects on Opehlia’s passive life -“this was the only kind of love she identified with.”
Yalindee’s defining moment was her portrayal of Ophelia’s madness. “I avoided the clichés of cackling laughter etc.” she comments, instead exhibiting Ophelia’s internal struggles with subtle mental triggers and eerie, lullaby like humming. She wasn’t afraid to add a dash of ‘Yalindee’ as well into her performance. “I used to think of how to depict her whilst putting something of me also into her.”
A highlight of Visakha’s simplistic performance was the scattered group of night gowned creatures silently divulging her bubbling madness. By the end, the 15 once pristine girls are smeared in black, allowing the audience to absorb the mess that is now Ophelia’s mind.
Without the support of her cast and crew, Chalana, the school and her family Yalindee shares that her dream might have never materialized. She shares “In those 30 minutes it’s a roller coaster of emotion.”
Best Actress – Hasini Dissanayake
“I didn’t like Shakespeare initially,” says Hasini Dissanayake (17) – the Bards signature language the cause of her aversion. However, she went on to snag the tie for Best Actress as the the solipsistic, pitiful Helena from “A Mid-Summer Nights Dream.”
Hasini Dissanayakke Pic by Sameera Weerasekera
Hasini recalls joining drama at Devi Balika Vidyalaya by “accident” when asked to audition for Shakespeare in 2015. She laughs “I didn’t even know what I was auditioning for!” Willing to try, Hasini read the script and landed her first role as the lead Katherine (Kate) from “The Taming of the Shrew”. “It’s easy to do a dramatic character,” she contemplates. Both Kate and Helena have overblown reactions to situations through diverse emotional spectrums. However, she bluntly admits loving her character was difficult when compared to Kate whom she “loved every single moment of playing.” At her second Shakespeare performance, Hasini contributes the success of developing her character largely to the freedom given by her directors Vishan Gunawardena and Akila Somachandra. “They wanted us to make our own backstories for our characters” she laughs as she recalls some of the bizarre questions the directors would throw at the cast during rehearsals like “What would Helena like to eat?”. The girls went through 1 ½ months of “teeth gritting” practices, but the “crazy times” allowed them to establish a “natural and real connection.”
Their whimsical, fairylike production literally came to life as the trees pulsed and lived while the fairies flitted around, freezing when the humans took over – a visual contrast of both worlds. They used their own “magic” Hasini grins but “We tried to be realistic and sincere in our production”.
Hasini commends the support she received from the cast, teacher – Roshani de Soyza, the principal and school, friends, family, the two directors whilst not forgetting “the people who helped us in various ways.”
Best Supporting Actress – Poshia Hettiarachchi
The tough- love mother of Coriolanus- ‘Volumnia’ is reminiscent of Mulan. From her billowing sleeves to her soothing but commanding voice, it was hard to believe that the powerhouse was actually young Poshia Hettiarachchi (17).
Pohia Hettiarachchi- pic courtesy Kandy Zone (Ushan Malshika)’
A student of Gateway College, Kandy – Poshia says, “I have never acted in school before nor have I acted in any production away from school.”
Encouraged by her English teacher to audition for this year’s competition, Poshia was apprehensive, entering a “tough competition” with “no experience at all”. “I didn’t think I would do very well, she comments. But after the first try “I instantly fell in love with the drama,” – and the rest is history.
Director Dakshika Wijesekera guided Poshia on stage whilst also allowing the young thespian her own space to add in her interpretations. She shares her personal understanding of Volumnia’s character as hardly a stereotypical “mother model”.
“She is a woman of great resilience and strength of character. I tried my best to capture her in that light,” she says . Through their arduous practices, Poshia found immense help in focusing on dialogue “to truly appreciate what she [Volumnia] is saying and what emotion was encapsulated in those words”.
Volumnia’s dialogue was key as it allowed Poshia to use it to her advantage. She comments “Her words are full of power and feeling-and this is what I focused on”.
When we saw her make an entrance during their final scene, Poshia mastered the tightrope between “supportive mother” and “a Roman woman with a conscious” – her poise and diction was what kept all focus on her, throughout. On winning she explains “It’s one of the greatest feelings I’ve had”. Initially filled with disbelief, as she hadn’t set a foot on stage before, this young thespian comments “It was like a dream come true.”
With the guidance of her director and school, Poshia commends them for their support in helping her “accomplish something so great.”