News
The Jungle and the Sea: Lankan civil war drama lifts joy above trauma
A new play that combines two great pillars of literature – the Mah?bh?ratha and Antigone – with the untold histories of the Sri Lankan civil war to forge a new story about surviving loss, discovering love and building a path to justice, by Lankan origin Australian writer and director S. Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack is a soaring achievement, says The Guardian.
The play staged at Belvoir St theatre, Sydney shows people living and loving despite danger, says a report by TG.It says: Ablindfolded woman, wearing a sari, places a conch shell on the ground. It might serve as a ritualistic trumpet or a reminder of a Sri Lankan beach towards the end of the country’s 26-year civil war – when tens of thousands of bodies lay scattered on its sand as though they had fallen from the sky.
She then dances slowly, sorrowfully, with precise mime and hand gestures to signal her pain. We soon learn this matriarch, Gowrie, had taken a vow many years earlier to wear the blindfold until her four children could be reunited, after her only son was swept away with the Tamil Tigers – a group the Sinhalese-controlled government branded terrorists.
In this silent, impactful opening scene of The Jungle and the Sea, Anandavalli – in her first acting role – brings to Gowrie her own experience: first, as artistic director of the Lingalayam Dance Company, notably in the classical Indian dance form bharata natyam; and also as a survivor of trauma herself.
Co-written and co-directed by Anandavalli’s playwright son S Shakthidharan with Belvoir’s artistic director Eamon Flack, the play is a companion piece to 2019 epic Counting and Cracking, which aimed to fill the silences between first- and second-generation Sri Lankan-Australian refugees about their shared history. It went on to win seven Helpmann awards, and recently toured to Edinburgh and Birmingham.
During the long development process for Counting and Cracking, Anandavalli gradually opened up to her son about fleeing Sri Lanka for Australia, and agreed to act in this latest work. It features seven other actors plus two musicians playing carnatic instruments including the lute-like saraswati veena, and percussion such as a mridangam and a ghatam clay pot.
Like its predecessor, The Jungle and the Sea is another achievement of sustained feeling and empathy, of insight into chaos, power and the human instinct for joy and survival. This is all the more remarkable given the simplicity of the production, with a revolving stage used at different speeds to indicate travel between eras and locations, and little reliance on props. There is no scenery apart from bullet holes running the width of the theatre walls.
While Shakthidharan and Flack’s earlier play charted the origins of the conflict and was set mainly in the capital of Colombo on the west coast, The Jungle and the Sea shifts the focus to northern Sri Lanka, where the violence was concentrated. It is focused on 1995, the war’s final year of 2009, and the present day in 2022.
Shakthidharan shows people living and loving despite danger and death – but this new material carries risk. While Counting and Cracking aimed to help Sri Lankans heal and feel a part of the Australian story, and endeavoured to provide a space for many truths across religious and ethnic lines, there is potential for retraumatisation from the violent events recounted in The Jungle and the Sea.
Perhaps this is why that violence is portrayed stylistically, with characters smearing their faces with blood to denote death and then walking away – a too-subtle strategy which dramatically undersells a couple of moments. A wedding across religious lines during bombing and shelling also risks minimising the horrors of war, although Shakthidharan succeeds in his clear intent to “drive an arrow” through media images of “helpless brown people”, and instead show Sri Lankans “surviving and loving and living”. There are also a couple of repetitive spots in the second act that could do with a trim, particularly around the family’s journey to find the brother, Ahilan (Biman Wimalaratne).
But performances are finely honed. Bollywood actor Prakash Belawadi, who played the patriarch in Counting and Cracking, returns to play the father, Siva, who is poignantly convincing when blinded in the war, and amusing in his reaction when his youngest daughter Lakshmi (Emma Harvie) comes out as a “lesbian atheist” during a well-calibrated comic scene at an expensive Sydney restaurant.
Nadie Kammallaweera, who was also in Counting and Cracking, segues neatly between the widely varying ages of her two characters, daughter Madlu and eccentric but wise Devla. And Kalieaswari Srinivasan plays firebrand daughter Abi with gusto, marrying across sides a Sinhalese groom, Himal (Rajan Velu), then trying to light a funeral pyre for her sibling, risking the wrath of the state in a denouement reminiscent of Antigone’s defiance.
The play will prompt important conversations about the Sri Lankan government killing its own citizens during the war, turning heavy machinery upon them or encouraging them to take shelter at church or hospital before bombing such gathering places.
Wise words translated to English from devotional Tamil poetry ultimately take centre stage with appeals to our better selves, even as war sloganeering twists language and we are reminded love itself can be “abused, betrayed, sensationalised”. The final dance is saved for the matriarch Gowrie, whom poetic licence gifts the sight of her children once again, as fretted strings and double-barreled drums play out.The Jungle and the Sea is at Belvoir Street theatre until 18 December.
State coffers suffered huge losses
A probe conducted by the Auditor General’s Department and the Parliamentary watchdog committee, COPA (Committee on Public Accounts) has revealed that a large number of luxury cars and SUVs have been imported with the help of forged documents that declared them as tractors.
During a recent COPA investigation into the Department of Motor Traffic (DMT), it was disclosed that the files related to the registration of those vehicles had gone missing.
COPA Chairman Aravinda Senaratne pointed out that BMWs and Mercedes-Benz cars had been declared as tractors. A total of 158 such cases had been specifically identified, the COPA said.
At the last COPA meeting, the DMT was instructed to provide details regarding those instances, but the Department has not yet done so. Some officials had already been identified and charged with the fraudulent registration of vehicles, Senaratne said.
“Wrong information about these vehicles has been entered deliberately. Their years of manufacture have been altered. According to our records, whenever an issue is raised, officials claim that the relevant files are missing,” Senaratne stated.
Current Commissioner General of the DMT, Nishantha Weerasinghe, said that those incidents had occurred before he assumed office.
Former DMT Commissioner General Sumith Alahakoon revealed that he had lodged two complaints with the CID. “When I took office, there were about 12 container loads of files flagged for errors. Out of those, 118 files were recovered by internal auditors and submitted to the CID. Thereafter, I was removed from my post,” he said.
The COPA Chairman accused the current DMT Commissioner General and his officials of failing to follow up on the complaints lodged with the CID by his predecessor.
When asked about action taken against the prime suspect in the fraud involving the luxury cars imported as tractors, the current Commissioner General said the suspect had been released due to insufficient evidence. A system analyst had been interdicted as investigators found that the database contained wrong information about vehicle imports.
COPA member MP Chandana Sooriyarachchi remarked that COPA investigations would be meaningless if officials sought to absolve themselves of responsibility simply by claiming that files had gone missing.
Sooriyarachchi said such fraudulent actions had cost the state coffers billions of rupees.The COPA Chairman said all aspects of the case would be thoroughly investigated.
by Saman Indrajith
SLMC General Secretary Nizam Kariapper, MP, yesterday (23) said that the National People’s Power (NPP) government owed an explanation as to why it continued to ignore indiscriminate Israeli attacks on Gaza.
Parliamentarian Kariapper pointed out that a statement, dated March 21, issued by Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism Ministry, while expressing deep concern over the deteriorating conditions in Gaza, requested all sides to avoid any action that would lead to further escalation of the situation.
The government statement conveniently failed to mention that Israel killed over 400 civilians and launched a fresh ground offensive in Gaza regardless of the ceasefire in place, lawmaker Kariapper said. The top SLMC official accused the NPP government of remaining silent on US approved slaughter of civilians taking place.
“The majority of victims in the Gaza war were women and children,” MP Kariapper said. If the NPP government lacked the strength to issue a statement that properly dealt with the ground situation, Sri Lanka should have refrained from commenting on the latest developments.
The SJB National List MP said that the Jewish State also launched operations in Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon as it sought to exploit the situation to its advantage.
MP Kariapper urged the government to take a principled stand on Israeli military action that so far claimed the lives of over 60,000 people since late 2023.
Israel launched large-scale offensive action after Hamas terrorists killed over 1,200 Israeli civilians in raids carried out in early Oct 2023. Hamas abducted a large number of Israelis and a section of them have been released so far.
By Shamindra Ferdinando
There has been an increase in underworld activities and gun violence this year, and 27 shooting incidents have left 22 persons dead, and more than a dozen others injuried.The latest shooting incident was reported from Devinuwara on Friday night, when two gunmen killed two youths at point-blank range.
The shooting spree which began in early January has continued into March, with incidents reported from areas such as Mount Lavinia, Mannar, Galle, Kotahena, and Devinuwara. Victims included civilians gang members, and a former prison official.
On 19 February 19, a man and his two young children were brutally gunned down in Middeniya. On the same day, underworld figure Ganemulle Sanjeewa was assassinated inside the Aluthkade Magistrate’s Court by a suspect disguised as a lawyer. Those brazen attacks, often carried out in broad daylight, have caused serious concerns over public safety and the proliferation of firearms in criminal networks.
January saw multiple targeted attacks, including the contract killing of two men in Mount Lavinia for Rs. 1.5 million on 19 Jan. A dried fish trader narrowly escaped death outside his home in Devinuwara on 13 Jan., when gunmen opened fire on a house in Dodangoda. A shooting incident on Jan 31 in Hiniduma, Galle, claimed three lives, including that of a lodge owner.
The gun violence intensified in February, with the assassination of an alleged gang member in Kotahena on February 10 and the shooting of a man near a school in Minuwangoda on 07 Feb. Following the courtroom assassination of Ganemulle Sanjeewa on 19 Feb., the violence continued with two separate shootings in Ja-Ela and Kotahena on 21 Feb., leaving two people dead.
March saw a further escalation of gun violence, with the fatal shooting of former Boossa Prison Superintendent Siridath Dhammika at his residence in Galle on 13 March. A day later, a man known as Podi Sudda was gunned down in Ambalangoda.
by Norman Palihawadane
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