10th June 2001
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Rewarding revelations
By Lalanath de Silva
About a year old, "Revelations" is a group of 10 young men who have come together to form a choir. Their performance of sacred music on Sunday, June 3 at St. Michael and All Angels' Church, Colpetty was a revelation indeed. The 18 pieces selected for the performance ranged from the classical repertoire to African-American spirituals. This in itself was a demanding task. What came through, most of all, was the obvious focus of the group on achieving a good performance that satisfied themselves and their audience. They were dressed well and did their best to reach perfection in their performance. For me, as a listener, that is all that mattered. I enjoyed the evening very much. Perhaps this is an opportunity to say that both in the vocal and instrumental sphere, we live in an era of change. The old order that represented purely amateur performances is giving way to a happy mixture of professionalism. For me, the change is obvious and clear. An era has ended and another begun - those who linger will be left behind! The Revelations, if they persist in the endeavour they have set themselves, will survive. The evening's performance was cohesive for the most part and the works selected were well within the technical capacity of all the singers. About half are solo singers, and perhaps this may be the reason why I thought the group needs to work harder at achieving an even better ensemble. The test of good balance in a choir is in its ensemble (blending) during very quiet to medium dynamic range singing. No one voice must stand out. Clearly, the Revelations had no problem in their forte ensemble. In the "Panis Angelicus" (C. Frank) and the Kyrie (Gustaffsson) better ensemble would have helped in the quieter sections. By way of constructive criticism, one other aspect needs to be emphasised. An audience is entitled to expect good intonation. There is no excuse for even slight intonation "problems". The Revelations would do well to pay special attention to the tenor lines, where intonation suffered from time to time. In particular, the performance of contemporary works requires perfect (not merely near perfect) intonation. The Ave Maria (Biebl) and Kyrie (Gustaffsson) are some works in which intonation could be improved. Neranjen de Silva and Tania Vethanayagam ably rendered the organ accompaniment. Occasionally, though, there was an unintentional slowing down of the pulse, which did not help the music. Sanjeev Jeyaratnam led the group well, though I would have preferred if he stood in the middle and made no bones about his "conducting" the group. The spirituals came out well and the interruption of the music with short profundities added to the aesthetics and spirituality of the evening. I go for concerts not to take notes about mistakes. These there will always be in any human performance. What makes a good performance is the way you render it, minimizing the mistakes, and making the best of your abilities. The Revelations passed that test. For me, this will remain a memorable evening.Shakespeare in stitches
The compleat wrks of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged)Seems like a typographical error? Or a pathetic attempt to get noticed...No it is a subtle way of sending out a message that this is Shakespeare as you have never seen before.
A well-known theatre company ditches its familiar name and adopts a
name describing the totally manic nature of this production. This is how
the members of Stagefright&Panic introduce their play, 
due
to go on, under or over, the boards of the Lionel Wendt theatre in August.
Stagefright&Panic was formerly known as StageLight&Magic Inc. To its loyal following of 28 people (most of whom are relatives of the artistic director) it has brought such magical productions as The Legend of Macbeth, Julius Caesar - The Anatomy of an Assassination, Widows, Accidental Death of an Anarchist and most recently Death and the Maiden. The company's work has been ground-breaking, in fact it has broken much more than just ground in its productions, judging by the number of broken arms, legs, tables chairs etc.
After a couple of years in existence StageLight&Magic Inc., has succumbed to the sad fact that its latest production has but one thing in common with its previous productions, that is the use of the stage. The light has been replaced by an unusual Stagefright which makes actors dither and slobber their lines, the magic has been replaced by a continuous state of panic which seems to run through the whole production...so the name change.....and Stagefright&Panic is born....
The Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shkspr is, as the Los Angeles Herald described it, "Shakespeare as written by Readers Digest, performed by Monty Python and performed at the speed of the minuet waltz. So forsooth! Get thee to the delightfully fractured complete works!". The play is an attempt by three actors (who call themselves professionals who don't get paid, simply because they are not worth a penny!) to "capture in a single theatrical experience, the magic, the genius, the towering grandeur, of the complete works of William Shakespeare". In about two hours of non-stop bustle, blabber and blank verse the actors cover not just the 37 plays of the Bard of Avon but also manage to 'do' all the sonnets. "We have expunged much of Shakespeare's subtle psychological insight, his carefully spun subplots, his well-honed social satire, and skipped right to the sex and killing" says a member of the cast speaking to us on the condition of anonymity.
The play is performed by Ifaz Bin Jameel, Anuruddha Fernando and Feroze Kamardeen. They claim to have extensive experience in theatre mostly derived from sneaking into the Lionel Wendt auditorium during plays and munching through packs of potato chips. Ifaz, denies this and says his claim to fame is having sported extremely weird hairstyles in a play called "Widows". Anuruddha claims to have a large following of theatre lovers who clamour for tickets each time he performs (the clamour is to actually sell the tickets for at least half the price in front of the Lionel Wendt) and also says that he posesses a bigger appetite (for food) than any other theatre personality! Feroze, is in the cast simply because the director of the play thinks he is the best actor for the role. The play is directed by Feroze Kamardeen. The official radio station for the play is YES FM. The official newspaper is The Sunday Times (which is the only reason why this article is being published). "The Sunday Times has been very supportive of StageLight&Magic Inc., in fact they have been co-sponsors for every one of our productions" says Ifaz, in his capacity as President of StageLight&Magic. The compleat wrks of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged) is due to be performed from August 23 to 26 at the Lionel Wendt Theatre.
- Hamlet the Great Dane
Book review
Capturing decades of intelletual, creativity
It is all too rare for aca demic journals to sustain high intellectual standards and creative scope across several decades. Scholars working in Sri Lanka, and on Sri Lanka-related topics from abroad, are fortunate that The Sri Lanka Journal of the Humanities (hereafter SLJH) has achieved this unusual distinction.
This double-volume of SLJH, published for 1998-1999, commemorates the 25th issue of the journal and marks 50 years of Sri Lanka's independence.
The range of subjects treated within the volume, and their generally substantive character, indicate an important on-going commitment to research and critical reflection under inhospitable conditions.
The volume begins with an accessible review of Sri Lanka's constitutional history by the late Prof. A.J. Wilson. In this essay, Prof. Wilson discusses the Jennings- Senanayake Constitution of 1946-48, the Sirimavo-Colvin R. de Silva Constitution of 1972-78, the Jayewardene Constitution of 1978, and the proposals brought forward by G.L. Peiris and Chandrika Kumaratunga for 1999. Central to Wilson's account is the movement from Westminster to Gaullist models of governmental organization and the crucial relationship between constitutional formulations and emergent ethnic conflict.
Three other contributions to the volume (by Roberts, Perera and Kandiah) intersect to some extent with Professor Wilson's concerns. In a brief and professedly informal (p. 73) rejoinder to studies of ethnicity and nationalism, Dr Michael Roberts attends to theories of nationalism and ethnicity with special attention to 'instrumentalist' accounts of human action (among which he includes influential analyses by Eric Hobsbawm and Kumari Jayawardena).
Dr S. W. Perera provides a thorough and often insightful study of Shyam Selvadurai's second novel, Cinnamon Gardens. Perera examines the novel's structure and literary effectiveness from a variety of perspectives, which might well invite a productive rejoinder by Selvadurai. In the present context, Perera's assessment of Selvadurai's historical reconstruction is perhaps most relevant. In Perera's view, Selvadurai's treatment of local elite participants during the 1927-1928 Donoughmore Commission is insufficiently nuanced, especially with respect to decisions about education, labour and franchise (see, for instance, pp. 91-93). This, combined with what Perera sees as the author's decision to emphasize portrayals of "the more enlightened breed of Englishman" (p. 103), arguably misrepresents the cultural politics of the pre independence period in some respects.
Prof. Thiru Kandiah's essay is a reminder that the question of who speaks for whom, and in what language, remains a contested matter in Sri Lanka today. A striking feature of Kandiah's essay on "the problem of English" (p. 31 ) is his claim that many Sri Lankans who use English have only a partial command of the language. Unable to function fully in English such people are, in Kandiah's view, doubly vulnerable: to a small local elite circle of true bilinguals, and to English-language cultural and economic frameworks imposed by global forces (see, especially, pp. 51-4, 56, 59-61). According to Kandiah, whose account is sure to stimulate controversy, both the empowered participation in 'modernity' and the reflective retrieval and reassessment of indigenous traditions, require highly developed English language skills (though not at the expense of skill in local languages).
Other contributions to this double volume of SLJH deserve special notice.
Dr Ranjini Obeyesekere offers a productive model for the study of "Buddhist attitudes toward women" (p. 13). She examines a single story (of Kundalakesi) across three textual moments: the (c. 5th century) Pali commentary on the Theri Gatha, the (c. 5-6th century) Pali commentary composed for the Dhammapada, and the (13th century) Sinhala Saddharmaratnavaliya. Obeyesekere notes significant shifts in narrative structure and emphasis across the three texts and, most importantly, begins to relate such shifts to the cultural and ideological contexts in which each text was likely composed.
Concerned with literature of a different sort, Prof. B.S.S.A. Wickramasuriya carefully traces the rise of "the psychological novel" in Sinhala across the 20th century through close analyses of passages from novels by A. Simon de Silva, Martin Wickramasinghe and Siri Gunasinghe.
Finally, mention must be made of Dr H. A. 1. Goonetileke's addendum to his 1975 "Bio-bibliographica! commentary" on Robert Knox' stay in the Kandyan Kingdom. Historians of the period, and others captivated by Knox' experience will benefit from Goonetileke's annotated bibliographic entries.
The writer is an Assistant Professor & Director of Graduate Studies,
Department of Religious Studies University of South Carolina, USA
Reflecting on politics and beauty
This exhibition of 17 works by British photographer John Kippin forms a mini survey of the artist's work from 1988 to 1998. After studying at Brighton Polytechnic and the University of Northumbria, Kippin emerged in the late 1980s as a prominent figure in the debate on the radical reappraisal of documentary photography.Integrating text into many of his images was one strategy used by Kippin to challenge the realist paradigm that had traditionally underlined all documentary practice. Choosing to focus his attention on landscape afforded Kippin an opportunity to explore the encoded meanings, ideologies and ideas concealed or overlooked within this specific photographic genre. In his work from the late 1980s to the present, Kippin presents pictorial landscape traditions and notions of aesthetic beauty, juxtaposing them with acute reflections on cultural and political change in contemporary Britain.
Co-hosted by the Barefoot Gallery John Kippin's work will be on display at 704, Galle Road, Colombo 03 from Saturday June 16 to Sunday June 24.
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