‘Proud beyond words’
Flashback to May 2021: Hiran speaking to the Sunday Times at his father’s home in Kotte. Pic by Akila Jayawardana
“In 2007, when I cast Hiran in Equus, I knew I couldn’t have asked for better. I’d just seen him in Scott Richards’ workshop production with the British Council, and I knew what a super little actor he was. Little did I realise then that he was destined for greatness on stage in the West End of London; that 15 years later, he would win the Olivier for the Best Actor, an award previously won by the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch and Sir Ian McKellan, and Bryan Cranston from Breaking Bad!”
So says theatre director and actor Steve de la Zilwa who is “proud beyond words” as indeed are all theatre lovers and Sri Lankans at seeing Sri Lankan actor Hiran Abeysekera carry away the coveted award for Best Actor at the Olivier Awards in London last Sunday. The Oliviers are Britain’s theatrical ‘Oscars’ and touching all Lankan hearts, Hiran from the glittering stage at the Royal Albert Hall, addressed a touching salutation to folks back home, “Machangla; mama umbalata aadareiy”, followed by the Buddhist blessing “Sabbe satta bhavantu sukhitatta.”
Picked from the Sinhala theatre when auditioning for a trilingual production of Romeo and Juliet by the British Council, and later having galvanized Colombo audiences with his sensational rendering of Alan Strang in the psychological thriller Equus, Hiran went off on a well-deserved scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London in 2007.
Steve who helped him with his audition reflects on that role that electrified local audiences. “Hiran was a dream come true for us all who worked with him in Equus. Not only was he this player who generously gave you everything, he was himself an absolutely charming, lovable person.
“Every school he auditioned for in the UK accepted him. He chose RADA, only the most prestigious drama school in the world. It was his undoubtable, inherent talent that took him there. It was his sheer brilliance as an actor that has kept him busy on stage, playing to acclaim at the National Theatre and with the Royal Shakespeare Company, working TWICE with Peter Brooks, the “greatest living theatre director”.
“I am, like Hiran is, ecstatic at his success. Proud beyond words.”
Last Sunday, sporting a black genie-like costume at the Oliviers, (his girlfriend dressed in an olive green, flower sprigged sari) Hiran cut an endearing figure, his sheer delight at the win moving many in the audience packed with celebrities.
Hiran Abeysekera and girlfriend Maia Jemmett at the Olivier Awards in the Royal Albert Hall in London, April 10 REUTERS/May James
Local theatre personality Shannon Raymond, who was another of Hiran’s mentors speaking to the Sunday Times said: “It is such an honour to have been part of his process (up to now)… It is rare to come across such talent and when he was nominated I told him he will win. If I had had half the chance I would have been there (to see him).
“He is in elite company among the previous recipients. It’s worth going through previous winners – great actors like Benedict Cumberbatch, Nigel Hawthorne and Richard Griffiths.
“Despite the amazing talent – such a humble human being; keep watching him…”
Hiran’s “talented, determined, hardworking and a really nice guy who put his heart and soul into making the most of a very rare opportunity- a full scholarship to RADA where he topped the batch and the rest is history,” commented Ranmali Mirchandani, formerly Arts Manager at the British Council who invited ‘Willi’ Scott Richards to Sri Lanka and was the first person with Willi to pick Hiran for their production of Romeo and Juliet.
“Keep aiming for the stars Hiran,” she said.
But, as the 36-year-old actor told me in an interview for the Sunday Times last year when we met him at the Kotte home of his father, it took “a lot of hard work”.
Despite all the glamour of the stage however, he said then he sometimes felt exactly like Eliza Doolittle after she became ‘a lady’- fitting neither here nor there (though at more jubilant moments he feels he ‘fits in everywhere’).
Our rendezvous with Hiran happened in May last year as Sri Lanka was in the throes of the pandemic, and before this production of The Life of Pi, for which he won the Olivier, was staged at London’s West End. At that time, given all the uncertainty prevailing, the chance that Hiran would be at the Mecca of musicals hung then on a precarious thread (a pandemic casualty? – luckily it was not.)
In that interview he spoke of The Life of Pi production first staged at the Sheffield Crucible, directed by Lolita Chakrabarti where he had already garnered rave reviews:
“It was a huge highlight. And it was so challenging, man – like vocally, it was the most challenging thing I have done. Because for opera singers… it’s about the pitch of hitting a certain note so that your voice rides over the music and you got to hit it every time – and physically it’s exhausting – it’s like I’ve run a couple of marathons. The body’s drenched in sweat when I am finishing.
“The other most challenging thing was that during rehearsals, because it was a new script, it kept on changing, so almost every day we had like new scenes or a scene would change, the dialogue would change and I had to accommodate that. Once before we opened there was a scene where Pi ends up with a tiger in this island where there are meerkats and flesh-eating plants and stuff and the water is acid and all that. The whole scene had the puppetry and choreographed everything; tentacles coming out and grabbing me, all that –but then, before we opened up we realized that we didn’t have enough time to pack it and for people to be safe, so the scene was cut. But it needed to be in the story.
“So they gave me like a page, a pull on monologue, and I had to learn it within a few hours. That was a major challenge but just like anything, my mind at that time, the muscle had been worked and I was ready to – like a sponge – absorb everything.
“During my lunch break I learnt the whole thing. But the highlight was the audience. It was deafening. As soon as the lights went out, they went mad. And when the lights came back everyone was shouting – like aaargh- which was really cool!”
We wish Hiran a lusty “Jayawewa!” echoing his own resonant words at the Royal Albert Hall last Sunday; here’s to a Peter Pan on the rise!
(See also TV Times)
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