Kolam Masks: King
MAHA SAMMATA and Queen - |
WWW Virtual Library - Sri Lanka
Kolam, Sokari & Nadagam
Theater in Sri Lanka
(@ Dr. A.J. Gunawardana)
In Sri Lanka, the traditional
and the modern, the old and the new in theatre can be seen in striking
conjunction. Based in Colombo, the capital city, there is a burgeoning,
cosmopolitan, modern theatre, which presents original works and translations (of
Beckett, Gogol, Gorky, et.al.) in a wide range of forms and styles. In the rural
areas, age-old ritualistic theatres are performed to promote the welfare of the
community and to heal the sick. In between are various folk theatres – the
entertainments springing from a predominantly agricultural way of life. And, as
in all modernizing societies, many of the older forms are waning away while the
new theatre is flowering.
The
ritual theatres
The ritual theatres of Sri
Lanka are among the oldest extant performances with an unbroken history. Legend
traces their beginnings to pre-Buddhist times. However remote their origins, it
is quite clear that the ritual theatres, like all living art forms, have been
changing over the years, discarding some elements and absorbing others. As
practiced today, ritual theatres, are generally nightlong performances addressed
to the numerous deities and demons of the folk religion.
A vast pantheon of gods and
demons inhabits the still vital world of Sinhala folk belief. Depending on time
and circumstances, and their particular spheres of influence, these powerful
beings can impinge in various ways on the affairs of men. For example, gods can
assure a plentiful harvest and bring succor to people in times to people in
times of distress. The demons, on the other hand, are evil in their effects:
they possess people, making them ill.
The primary purpose of the
ritual theatres is to propitiate the gods and the demons, so that they will
confer their blessings or heal the afflicted. Where the demons are concerned,
there is an exorcist aim also. A basic assumption in these theatres is that
these beings have the right to expect certain oblations and offerings from
humans. If these are not made, the gods will either cause harm to people or
desist from helping them as for the demons. However, once an offering is made in
the proper manner, the demons are obliged to remove their malefic influence and
return the patient to good health.
The ritual theatres are more
than modes of oblation: they are also re-enactments of the original ceremonials
in which the covenant between the otherworldly forces and the human forces was
first ratified or demonstrated. Typically, the good are invited to watch the
proceedings; the demons are summoned in order that they may be persuaded to
behave in the manner they did on a similar occasion in the distant past.
Although there is great
dramatic potential in this view of the relationships between the human world and
the spirit world, the ritual performances have not evolved into continuous,
full-scale dramas. The general conception is theatrical (the space used is
constantly referred to as the “Ranga Mandala” -arena of performance) but the
form itself is highly segmented, mixing long sections of verse narrative,
incantation, chant, and dance with dramatized episodes, which employ dialogue
and mime as well. The episodes are culled mainly from stories dealing with the
genesis and the background of each principal deity or demon. While almost every
performance element is brought in, it is dance that predominates in most ritual
theatres.
Furthermore, these theatres
have an unmistakably composite character; in the course of time, a number of
different but allied rites have come together. This suggested both by the strong
reminiscences of archaic year rites and animistic cults found in them, and by
the diversity of gods and demons coming within the ambit of each ceremonial.
While they all occupy one
broad framework on account of the similarity of their essential attitudes and
structures, the ritual theatres can be conveniently separated into several
categories. In the large-scale performance, the collective aspect predominates –
they are done for the welfare of a whole community, the village being the
primary unit. These are generally addressed to gods and are given annually
(customarily at harvest time) or when the community is threatened by epidemics
of certain infectious diseases thought to have links with the spirit world. In
the latter case, a vow is first made that performance would be given upon speedy
release from the grip of the epidemic.
There is a second category of
ritual where the beneficiary is an individual, rather than the community as a
whole. Demonic possession is one obvious occasion, which calls for such theatre.
Another is evil planetary influence. These theatres, smaller in scale than the
communal types, are of course performed when indicated, or rather prescribed by
the ritual specialist or astrologer.
Of the major communal
theatres, the most famous and undoubtedly the most majestic is the Kohomba
Kankariya. Nowadays confined to the environs of Kandy, the
Kohomba Kankariya. Nowadays confined
to the environs of Kahomba Kankariya traces its beginnings all the way
back to the first Sinhala kings. The name means the rite of God Kohomba,
an animistic deity, which is suggestive if the antiquity of the ritual. However,
the original cult appears to have coalesced with several other, perhaps more
recent, folk ceremonials. Today it clearly displays this mixed ancestry, a
feature common to all Sinhala ritual theatres.
In keeping with the usual
pattern, the Kohomba Kankariya is a somewhat disjointed performance
separating into a number of named segments or episodes. A common set of ritual
objectives and a single from of dance, rather than a coherent dramatic
structure, link them together. In the Kohomba kankariya, far more than in
other aspects comparable ritual theatres, the dance element takes precedence
over all other aspects. In consequence, it becomes the finest and most complete
presentation of Sinhala dance: in this instance, the Kandyan form. Which is
counted the most beautiful of Sinhala dances.
The massed Kandyan dancers in
stately head-gear (ves) going into elaborate ballistic formations to the
accompaniment of deep, vibrant drum music makes a splendid spectacle. The sheer
pervasiveness and beauty of the dance might lead the uninitiated to the
conclusion that the Kohomba Kankariya is nothing but an extensive
presentation of dance. Despite the elaboration of the dance the ritual purpose
has never been forgotten. For example, the opening of the giant Mahaveli river
diversion scheme in January 1976 was marked by the performance of a Kohomba
Kankariya on the dam site.
The participants themselves
treat it with the utmost seriousness and observe the ritual sanctions. A
Kohomba Kankariya, moreover, figures as a significant event in the Kandyan
dancer’s artistic life: it lffers him the mist challenging occasion for the
display of this talents, for he dances in the company of his peers. And it was
customary at one time to the time to perform a Khomba Kankariya on the
“graduation” of a Kandyan dancer, that is, when he is first permitted to put on
the ves head-gear at the end of his training.
The explicitly dramatic
segments of the Kohomba Kankarya – nowadays sometimes omitted in
performance – come towards the conclusion. Though only peripherally connected to
the core ritual, these are of great interest, not only for their use of
performance techniques, but also for the way they reflect the social reality
that engendered them. Uru Yakkama (the rite of Hunting the Boar) is a
case in point. The event is presented in verse narrative, dialogue (often
humorous) and mimetic action.
Before setting forth to shoot
the boar, the hunter (played by one of the dancers) consults and astrologer for
an auspicious time and the proper procedure to be followed. The hunter
encounters other animals, which he mistakes for a boar. Eventually, he comes
across the real quarry. At this point, a boar-effigy (made of banana stem) is
brought into the arena. Now a discussion ensues as to how the boar should be
taken, and it is decided that the vest method would be to use a buffalo as
decoy.
Now another dancer turns
himself into a buffalo by arching his body and placing ins limbs in a particular
manner. This animal, noosed after much effort, is then used to entice the boar,
which is shot down with bow and arrow. Subsequently, it is dismembered, and the
parts are given away to the villages. In this distribution, the actual social
order of everyday life is reversed by means of a simple device: the least
desirable portions of the carcass are given to he highest-ranking members of the
community, and the best to the lowest. Done to the accompaniment of a sarcastic
commentary, this achieves a high degree of social satire and criticism.
The Uru Yakkama is but
one episode of a type that is found not only the kohomba Kankariya, but
all ritual theatres. This makes it clear that ritual theatres have functions
besides those pertaining strictly to the spirit world. They deal with matters of
everyday reality; in fact, they frequently exhibit a strong tendency to move in
the direction of “profane” entertainment having little to do with ritual
purpose. This is not a characteristic unknown to other cult ; in Sri Lanka it
has been quite pronounced because ritual was, from the beginning, the major kind
of performance among the Sinhala people.
Less stately, less costly,
hence more frequently given is a group of communal rituals (Gam Maduwa, Devol
Maduva, Puna Maduva) deriving largely from the worship of the goddess
Pattini (Sinhala variant of the peerless Kannaki celebrated in the Tamil
classic Shilappadikaram). Pattini, whose cult is widely followed, is
considered to be a powerful deity especially important with respect to
contagious diseases. Her intercession is also sought in times of personal
distress. Temples (Kovil/devale) dedicated to her are scattered
throughout the country.
Ritual theatres linked with
the Pattini cult are in the main annual occurrences. The principal
objects of worship – representing the goddess herself – are a pair of ankle
bracelets, the item of jewellery that played such a crucial role in her own
life. Following the normal practice, the core ritual incorporates a number of
subsidiary rites, chiefly through mime, dance, and verse narrative. Of special
interest is a sequence called the MareIpaddema (death and resurrection),
which intimates the great antiquity of the cults that have come to be affiliated
with the Pattini theatres.
Since these theatres are
performed in many parts of the country, some variations can be noticed in the
styled they employ. Furthermore, two distinct forms of dance – “Kandyan” or “Uda
Rata” in the up-country areas, and “Pahata Rata” in the low country – are
used. At the present time, one is more likely to witness these theatres in the
coastal areas (“Pahata Rata”). As with the Kohomba Kankariya,
their performance depends on the support of the community.
The second category of ritual
theatres those concerned with individual sickness or misfortune – are known
collectively as bali-thovil. Bali means rites dedicated to the planetary
deities, and are the least dramatic of the ritual theatres. Thovil, given
to propitiate and exorcise demons, are as a class highly dramatic and excitingly
theatrical.
Bail is a votive offering
where chant and incantation receive far greater emphasis than dance and mime.
This feature, together with its direct appeal to planetary deities, can be taken
as evidence that Bali is later growth than the communal theatres. Another
notable characteristic of Bali is the use of images. Large clay effigies,
sometimes as tall as 3 meters, representing the planetary deities are
constructed in bas-relief fashion, and mounted in upright position before the
commencement of the ceremony. The ritual activities take place in front of these
images. When they are over, these carefully molded images. Are destroyed. Mainly
on account of the heavy expenditure it involves, Bali is seldom performed today.
From Bail to Thovil is
a fair leap, though in common parlance the two are linked. The demon world forms
the territory of Thovil. The demons are seen as adversaries ever ready to
cause harm to men, not as beings capable of beneficence. Thus, apart from
propitiation (which is common to al ritual theatres) exorcism also occurs in
Thovil. In many instances, the demons are impersonated by masked dancers.
(Hence the term “devil dancing” frequently used to describe Thovil.) It
is not uncommon for patients to go into states of trance during the course of a
performance: at such times, the patient is said to be possessed by the demon
responsible for the ailment. These characteristics, implying direct and
unmediated encounters with the demons, sometimes turn Thovil into an
enormously exciting theatrical experience.
Thovil
is an exceptionally interesting curative and therapeutic performance in which
the patient’s syndrome is translated into the shape and from of other-worldly
creatures who, though evil and frightening, cannot exercise total dominion over
man. They can be brought under control. The performers confront them on behalf
of the original ritual to reiterate the sanctions within which they mist
operate. Accordingly, the demons are obliged to accept the offerings – tokens of
what used to extract before the covenant was established – and depart.
The demons must appear before
dawn, because they have to return to their abodes without being seen by the sun.
Upon arrival in the arena, each demon executes a few steps to the drum, then
opens a dialogue with another performer or drummer, asking why he has been
summoned, etc. The reason is given: he must accept the offerings made ready for
him and the interlocutor now follows – he wants more than is given. Finally,
agreement is reached; the demon accepts offerings, blesses the patient and
exits. The dialogue is quite humorous, and often heavily charged with
obscenities and scatological references.
The in tensest moment in a
Thovil performance is reached when the patient becomes violently possessed,
and assumes the persona of the apposite demon. At such times, the “patient
demon” is closely questioned, and forced to pledge that he will remove his evil
influence and go away. Customarily, the patient joins in the dancing at such
times. Recalcitrant, unyielding demons are subjected to various punishments,
usually exhausting dance at highly increased tempo. Sometimes, they are made to
beat themselves with coconut flowers or fronds.
There are several different
kinds of Tovil (e.g. Suniyama, Rata Yakuma, Sanni Yakuma), each
distinguished by a particular content and a concern with specific forms of demon
affliction. Sanni Yakuma is probably the best known, for it brings in
eighteen demons, representing eighteen separate diseases (sanni). The
demon is identified by the mask he wears, the gestures and mannerisms that
attach to him as well as by the verses that signal his entry. Great theatrical
flair can be seen in the execution of the entry – each demon, appropriately
masked and costumed, sometimes bearing lighted torches in his hands, rushes into
the arena from behind an altar (vidiya) amid shrieks and frenzied
drumming. These grotesque and fearsome-looking creatures do not however frighten
the parent and the spectators. One reason for this is the ribald, comic gesture
and tone that underlie their portrayal. Another is the assumption that demons,
however malevolent, can ultimately be controlled.
“Arena” is perhaps too
suggestive a word to be employed in the contest of these theatres. A raised
platform and fixed seating are totally unknown. The audience sits or stands in a
circle round the space. A roofed structure is built for certain performances
such as the Kohonba Kankariya and Gam Maduva (maduva = shed
or pavilion) but this is never thought of as a playhouse. Whatever the ritual
prompting behind it, the offering trays, and also as a means of demarcating the
performance space the audience is an accommodated outside it – in the open air.
For Thovil, the Maduva is not a prescribed requirement. Quite
often, the verandah and compound of the patient’s house are used as the acting
space. The area thus obtained may be quire small ; moreover, it is a variable
one, since the spectators move about constantly, changing the size of the
circle.
The absence of a raised stage
and a rigidly demarcated acting area means, among other things, that the
relationship between the audience and the performers is an intimate one. It also
means that lighting is for illumination only – not foe stage effects. Light and
fire do play a very important part in ritual theatres. Fire, as is well known,
is a ritual cleansing agent. So is the smoke – created with aromatic resin
powders – which the performers inhale and envelope themselves in at certain
times. Lighted torches, lamps are regular “props” featured in these theatres.
Dancers execute intricate, acrobatic steps while holding or twirling several
torches at once, then touch them on chest and arms and “eat” the flames. In
major communal theatres, “fire-walking” is one of the mandatory concluding
rites. The effect of the light and fire sequences is much reduced these days on
account lights. In a dimly lit environment, the lights and the flames make for a
beautiful, exciting spectacle.
Ritual theatre is generally
speaking a formal and solemn event, Yet it is an air of informality that mostly
prevails at performances, for they are important social gatherings and meeting
places, for they are important social gatherings and meting places too. The
spectators are free to move about as they please, and they usually do,
especially at Thovils, where the serving of refreshments is a widely
observed custom. There are other reasons for the atmosphere of casualness. Few
members of the audience stay awake throughout a dusk to dawn “show”. An
occasional snooze is not
Considered Improper.
Furthermore, these theatres are not designed to elicit continuous and consistent
audience attention. There are segments (especially those given over to chant and
incantation), which turn into loungers, even for the performers. At such times,
the performers who are free rest or sleep.
A word needs to be said here
about the performers. They are true professionals after a fashion – not because
their entire livelihood today depends on the art, but because they are trained
specialists. The training they receive is chiefly in traditional dance and
music, either Uda rata or Pahata rata depending on place of
birth, family background and other determining factors. They begin quite early
(normally before the age of ten) usually under the tutelage of an elder (father,
uncle or other relative) since the teaching, learns both by doing and observing.
He will learn drumming as well as dancing, but concentrate on one later in life.
To become a ritual
specialist, he does not have to join a cult, be initiated, or have a shamanistic
experience. He merely learns the lore of the rituals, the procedures and the
“texts”. In fact, the student automatically turns into a ritual specialist too
as he completes his training of Sinhala dance is traditionally inseparable from
ritual. The dance, whatever the style, is developed as the core of the ritual
event. In the Kandyan tradition, for example, the education of the dancer
culminated in the performance of the Kohomba Kankariya. Dance was pursued
as a discipline and practiced almost exclusively in the ritual context, and even
today it forms the principal attraction of these theatres.
The “text” of the ritual
theatres, which the performers must know by memory, is of course not pieces of
dramatic writing, but chants, mantrams, narrative in verse and other
balladic material. Most of this may be called “folk” literature; a small part of
it, though, is known only to the specialists. Several segments of each
performance have no textual basis and are entirely improvised following
conventional techniques. For example, in the conversations with their
interlocutors, the demons regularly play with words by mispronouncing and
punning. Except for these passages of ad-libbing, which of course are in earthy,
colloquial speech, there departs occasions when the language of ritual theatre
departs from the metrical, stanzaic forms of folk poetry and from incantatory
prose.
Their major characteristics –
the propitiatory, exorcist intent, the paramountacy of dance, the highly
episodic, segmented structure, the elastic form, the lack of a textual base –
will probably raise the question whether the ritual theatre are theatres at all.
Indeed, they are frequently seen as primitive performances with only the
rudiments of drama – the rudiments being those sections where dramatic
situations are presented and developed through mime and dialogue.
It is hardly necessary to
point out that such a modernistic, literary perspective is inapplicable to these
theatres, which were generated and nurtured by societies entirely different from
those germane to modern urban theatre. The traditional theatres articulated the
specific kinds of relations that the people had with each other, with the
environment and with the “other world”. They mixed the sacral and the secular
and overlaid religious ceremonial with profane entertainment. They served their
several purposes admirably well and were wholly sufficient in their context.
To deny that so patently audience-oriented performances are theater is to give a
very limiting definition to the term.
To say all this is not to
gloss over the fact that the ritual theatres have now reached a stage where all
internal growth has ceased. The times have changed, but not the theatres. The
cleavage between them and society is increasing, and the current revival
interest in the traditional arts has served only to focus attention on their
dance and musical aspects, not to transform or modify their subject matte. That
they resist “modernization” is part of their essential nature.
That they are still performed
is, however, sufficient evidence that these have not lost all meaning and
vitality. Of the several very important theatrical qualities they exemplify, the
most considerable and noteworthy perhaps is the communal, collective base that
is a pre-condition of their being. They are the richly imaginative and
functional artistic expressions of a simple but highly integrated society where
all endeavour was collective endeavour. This characteristic is evident even in
Bali and Thovil for there individual distress is brought into the public
domain through the performance and the viewers vitality in the healing by
sharing responsibility for the curative and therapeutic procedures.
The ritual theatres are also
total theatres. They bring into play, besides the entire range of expressive
modes – gesture, mime, song, chant, dace, etc. – certain traditional crafts as
well. Bali, as noted earlier, requires the molding of images out of clay and the
painting of figures of demons and deities. This is done in a style very similar,
if not identical, to the work seen in the image houses of Buddhist temples. The
mask carver’s art, a notable one in the Sinhal tradition, was sustained almost
entirely by ritualistic theatre. (There is only one non-ritualistic sinhala
theatre – Kolam – that uses wooden masks.)
All ritual theatres make
profuse use of offering trays (Thatu, Pideni), altars (Veediya, Aile)
and other properties especially constructed for each performance. None of these
ritual objects are re-used, since they are destroyed or discarded at the end of
the event, Moreover, they are made of impermanent materials: banana stem,
coconut fronds (gok), and habarala leaf.
Considering the diverse ways
in which they have reflected and articulated the culture, harnessed the
performance arts and the decorative crafts, the ritual theatres may be said to
constitute the mainstream of the sinhala theatrical tradition. Certainly few
other theatrical forms are better known or have found wider acceptance among the
people. The performances still vibrate with energies absent in the other
theatres and they achieve an elemental power with no investment in dramatic
writing and no expenditure of scenery and set.
The indigenous Sinhala
theatres outlined thus far fall strictly within the matrix of folk religious
belief and practice. There are some others that lie outside this matrix. Of
these, Sokari, now an exclusively Kandyan performance, is a rare
transitional form that has retained some ritual import despite a fully secular
content Its connection, interestingly, is with the Pattini cult which, as
mentioned earlier, has number of ritual theatres devoted to it.
Sokari
is performed as a votive offering to Pattini. Their goddess herself does
not appear in the action in an instrumental fashion, but is nevertheless an
immanent figure. Sokari has one story (like the ritual theatres) and this
concerns a man, Guru Hami, his wife, the eponymous heroine, and their
rascally servant Paraya (or Pachamira) who travel to Sri Lanka
from India, with the intention of setting down and raising a family. In the
course of attempting these things, the trio goes through a series of (largely
comical) adventures. At one point, young and seductive, elopes with, or is
seduced by (the interpretation varies) the doctor summoned to treat her husband
who has been bitten by a snake. Eventually she returns, and has a child by Guru
Hami.
How, when and why the
enactment of this story came to be linked with the worship of Pattini are
matters for speculation? That it has the connotations of a fertility rite is
however quite obvious. Its without child for sometime, and prays to Pattini
for one. She conceives; the birth of the baby is depicted in the play.
Afterward, Sokari picks up a child from the audience and rocks it to
sleep. All this, together with the sexual symbolism and the obscenities that
punctuate the Sokari is the dramatic elaboration of an archaic fertility
rite.
Sokari
is among the most theatrically accomplished of the folk performances. Its
mimetic content is truly impressive in range and economy of use. The principal
stages of the sea journey – the procuring of the timber, the building of the
ship, the actual crossing of the ocean – and the other happening in Sri Lnaka
are presented though highly inventive physical actions that often match and even
outdo the sophisticated experiments of the modern stage.
As done in the village
setting, Sikari is a non-stop all night “show” beginning shortly after
the evening meal. Its ritual necessities are modest – just one simple altar to
house that few offerings to Pattini. The place of performance is any open
space: threshing floors are commonly utilized for this purpose, again suggesting
the fertility implications. The narrative portions, all in verse, are recited by
the players (all males) and are unobtrusive chorus to the accompaniment of a
drum.
The characteristic movement
of Sokari is a circular one – the players go round the arena in simple
rhythmic step while narrating the story. They stop to enact a scene, and having
finished it, continue the recitation and the circular motion. The scenes are set
pieces, which provide room for improvisation and individual creativity. Of the
major characters, only the clownich servant wears a mask. At the end of the
performance, which comes as dawn breaks, the players take of their make up in
front of the alter, supplicating themselves before Pattini, and begging
her forgiveness for any deficiencies and mistakes in the presentation.
At one time it was feared
that Sokari was no longer being performed and that the tradition itself
was on the verge of extinction. Fortunately, this has proved to be a false
alarm. At the present time, there are several active peasant Sokari
groups,
It can be surmised that the
survival of Sokari is due largely to the Pattini cult, which still
has many adherents: the performers consider themselves to be devotees of the
goddess; it is quite normal for the players to go into trance states during the
performance. Sometimes, several members of the audience also follow suit unlike
in Tovil and certain other ritual theatres, these by muscular rigidity.
Again, unlike the ritual theatres, Sokari in not caste-bound. Nor does
the training take as long, because the dancing is simpler.
The Sokari form is
responding in a fashion to the changing tastes of the folk audience. The opening
sequence in the performance of one group carries a strong flavor of the Nurti,
an early modern form of Sinhala drama. Contemporary Sinhala “pop” tunes are
being adopted by another group. These will be regarded by that the essential
strengths of Sokari remain.
From Sokari it is an
easy transition to Kolam, a folk theatre that at one time was very
popular, but is infrequently performed nowadays. In comparison with Sokari,
Kolam denotes a further stage in the secularization of indigenous theatre,
for it has attained the status of a theatrical grnre, yet not without
clear hints of an earlier ritualistic function. Being more of an open form than
Sokari, Kolam has a repertoire of dramas (albeit a small one ) any of
which may be selected for performance.
Kolam,
now confined to a few locations in the Southern maritime area, is distinguished
by the extensive use of masks. These masks, though akin to those employed in
Tovil, tend to be more realistic because many of the characters they
represent are of this world. A few masks, such as those of the King and the
Queen (stock characters both), are quite intricately sculptured and heavy.
Further, kolam masks are full masks, not designed to allow a strong,
distinct projection of the voice. Going by these features, some scholars have
argued that Kolam began as a masked dace ritual, which later become a
sung and spoken drama, but did not discard or modify the masks.
Lending support to this
argument is the fact that Kolam preserves certain affinities with the
ritual theatres in the conceptualization and presentation of characters.
Analogous to the demons of Thovil are the stock characters that are
brought before the audience as audience as prelude to the dramas proper. There
is wife (a randy old women), the policemen, the watermen, his wife and paramour,
the village dignitary as well as certain celestial beings and some animals.
According to told texts, there are over fifty such characters.
|
Kolam Masks: King
MAHA SAMMATA and Queen - |
The large cast of the prelude
has no direct bearing on the stories that are dramatized, but they are tenuously
connected with the story of the genesis of Kolam. According to this, a
certain Queen, being with child, suffered from a “pregnancy craving” for “dances
and amusement” Which was ultimately satisfied with a performance of Kolam.
As each character ends his piece, the question is asked, by a musician who his
appearance. (In Thovil, it will be recalled, it is the demon who puts the
question, “Why have I been summoned.”) The reply is: “I /We have come to
announce that king and the Queen are on their way here.”
It is evident that gallery of
characters has grown over the years, though the dramas themselves have remained
in the region of five or six. As in Thovil each character’s entry is
preceded by a set of introductory verses, which are chanted by the musicians.
The character, masked, then enters and dances round the area singing verses
descriptive of his or her special talents and conditon. Sometimes, tow or more
players represent the same character type. For example, in one tradition, there
are five policemen – four constables and a sergeant. This convention allows for
the elaboration of the elaboration of the presentations into dramatic episodes.
Thus the four policemen may be discovered by the officer. The most famous of
these is the episode of Jasa and Lenchaina (the washerman and his
wife) – a short play in itself.
The central situation here is
a ménage a trios; Jasa has brought a mistress to live with him. The wife
Lencina, herself amorous, laments her fate (for she has been married to
Jasa against her will) and complains to the Mudal, the village
functionary.The case is tried, but not before a good deal of farcical business
has taken place. A wily doctor also figures is these events as happens in the
Sikari story. But the comedy here is stronger and sharper in social content,
perhaps because the Kolam is more secular is nature.
The large gallery of
characters and the comic scenes that are woven around them well qualify the
Kolalm to be called the Comedian dell’ Arte of Sri Lanka: the and techniques
used are very similar.
In common with other native
theatres, the Kolam dispenses with all stage paraphernalia. Any level
piece of ground suffices; the audience forms a circle round it during the
performance, which as usual starts after invocatory chants and daces, addressed
to the deities. These brief rites are dined before the alteration (a small in,
as in the Sokari). However, the gods are not instrumental or immanent
presences as in the ritual theatres. At the end of the event, which is reached
early in the morning, the super naturals are invoked again, so that the players
may beg their pardon for errors and imperfections in the performance.
There are three main stories
particularly associated with the Kolam : Sandakinduru Katawa (katava
= story), Maname Katava and Gama Katava. The first tow are form
Buddhist lore, the Sandakinduru being a version of the Manora story,
which is a staple of all South East Asian theatres. In the enactment of these
dramas masks are not used. It is not easy to say when the masks were discarded,
if indeed they were functionally employed in the dramatizations. In any event,
as performed today, the Katavas lack a distinctive flavour, and it is
quite obvious that the true creativity and power of the Kolam reside in
the introductory and presentations. With their exuberant theatricality and
pungent satirical thrust, they constitute the soul of the kolam : the
enactment of the stories appears a tame afterpiece. Whether this has been the
case right through the form is not known.
A nearly extinct folk theatre
called the Kavi Nadaygama throws some light on the problem. The kavi
Nadagama had a large repertoire than the Kolam, but its most popular
pieces were Sandakinduru and Maname. Although it made no use
whatever of masks, its theatrical style was basically similar to that of the
Kolam. These links and differences have been interpreted to mean that the
kavi Nadagama was a matural outcome of the Kolam’s experience with the
masks. Instead of dropping the masks, which were found and encumbrance, a new
from – the Kavi Nadagama – was created, and the kolam itself took
the cue from its offspring and discarded the masks from the dramas proper.
Whether this was the actual
scenario or not, the connections between the two forms indicate an ongoing
process among all folk theatres. Since they existed in the same culture, were
performed for the same audience by nearly the same performers and were not bound
by a rigid aesthetic, the folk theatres influenced each other continuously. Each
did preserve its separate identify, but assimilated diverse elements form
others. This process of interpenetration has continued to the present day –
Sokari, as noted earlier, has picked up “ pop” tunes, and the Kolam
has culled some material from the modern stage.
The next chapter in the story
of the Sinhala theatre is the coming of the Nadamama. This happened not
more than two hundred years ago, most scholars agree, though no exact date has
been established. But there is little doubt as to its source – the Nadagama has
no antecendents among the Sinhala theatres and is unquestionably Dravidan in
origin.The first Sinhala Nadagama plays, it is said, were translated from
the Tamil.
All available evidence points
to Roman Catholicism as the agent of the Nadagama’s diffusion among the
Sinhaless, if not its begetter as well. It has been suggested that the
forerunner of Sinhala Nadagama was a dramatic form constructed out of
several South-Indian folk theatres by Catholic missionaries. In any event, the
earliest Sinhala practitioners of the Nadagama were Catholics who
employed it to dramatise liturgical subject matter. Before long, however, folk
theatre in the Western coastal belt, the area most directly theatrical craft –
it brought no such appurtenances as scenery or playhouse – but in its music,
story material, and in its conception of theatre as a performance divorced from
ritual observance.
Musically, the roots of the
Nadagama were in the South-Indian Carnatic tradition, whose idiom differs
substantially from that of indigenous Sinhala music. In the ritual theatres,
Kolam and Sokari, “song” was actually a sort of chant or recitative
embedded in the regular metrical schemes of folk poetry, melodic compass. The
Nadagama song had a grater melodic range and offered more scope for dramatic
expression.
Furthermore, the Madagama
gave a central role to music. It was, in fact, a completely sung drama, the
traditional to a fully operatic form to develop within the traditional
framework. All other theatres used prose dialogue in varying degrees; here it
was reduced to an utterance between songs, intoned in a particular fashion. The
Nadamama music thus brought a fresh dimension into Sinhala folk theatre.
So did its subject matter.
The Sinhala folk theatre had been tied to specific myths or to a very small
number of legends determined by convention and transmitted by tradition. The
Nadagama introduced fictional material, and thereby opened up hitherto
uncharted territory for the Sinhala theatre. In the beginning, it is true, it
dealt with Christian themes, but was never thought of as ritual performance or
religious drama * . The form was palpably secular, readily at home in the land
of adventure and romance.
In its presentational
aspects, the Madagama was not too foreign to the indigenous tradition,
Its main innovation in this regard, was the use of a raised, covered stage – a
temporary structure of piled earth, semi-circular in shape, sheltered by a
thatch of coconut palm leaves. There was no front curtain, no sets, and of
course no playhouse. The musicians occupied a part of the stage, so did the
Narrator or Presenter, and perhaps one or tow singers to serve as a chorus.
The performance starting
around nine and lasting till morning (and continuing nightly for a week in the
old days) are commenced with the presentation of stock characters - jester,
drummer, herald, and so forth. As with the earlier indigenous theatres, the
stock characters had their identifying styles of dance and song. Two members of
this prologue, called the Deshanvadi, briefly narrated the story to be
enacted. Then, after certain other preliminaries, such as the arrival if the
king, the drama would begin.
The dramas were long, rather
involved tales peopled by eloquent kings, warriors, aristocratic beauties, all
consumed by affairs of state and of love. They were written in a mixed tongue,
profusely littered with Tamil and pseudo-leaned words. The authorship of the
early cannot be established with any certainty; many are attributed to the
legendary Philippu Singho, putative father of the Sinhala Nadagama.
Little really is known about this man, but he is believed to have been a
blacksmith. This gives a sufficient picture of the social level at which the
Nadagama was practiced. It was essentially a folk
The Nadamagm became
very popular in the Western and Southern coastal belt, but did not spread to the
interior of the country. In this area it turned into a much sought after
entertainment, even superseding the older theatres. Yet it never made it to the
city as truly urban the folds of the folk tradition without evolving into an
urban or literary art, though it had a potential in that direction, was not
accidental.
The fate of the Nadagama
was determined in significant measure by a cultural factor, which is of the
utmost importance in understanding the nature and development of the theatre in
Sri Lanka. From the earliest times, the dramatic form appears to have been
eschewed – indeed despised - by the Sinhala literati: they devoted their
abundant labors to prose and poetry. It is unlikely that Sinhala classical
culture was unearthed to show that any Sinhala writer worked in the dramatic
form. (The earliest extant Sinhala writings date from the 6th
century.)
The neglect of drama as a
literary form, whatever its causes, also decided the social base of the art. In
Sri Lanka, this meant the confining of the theatre to the rural setting and to
folk culture – or to the Little Tradition, as anthropologists would say. In
consequence, the theatres were very tardy in developing secular characteristics;
the propitiatory and exorcist elements persisted as the very core of their
being. Most of them retained a fixed and inviolable content without widening
into theatrical genres or forms. To be sure, they did acquire and enlarge upon
“Profane”, non-ritualistic aspects, but the forms themselves remained unchanged.
The opening out of the Kolam and the Kavi Nadagams was probably
due to their contact with the Nadagama.
The age-old disdain of the
literati towards the theatre lasted into the twentieth century, long after
Sinhala literature itself had moved away from the religious bas. The Nadamama
enriched the traditional patterns in several ways, but was unable to attract the
interest of the literati. It was only in the mid-Fifties that the Nadagama
was “discovered” by the modern practitioner as a promising theatrical resource.
Nurti
A truly urban Sinhala theatre
came into being only in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Around that
time, there arrived in this country a Parsi theatrical company from Bombay,
bringing with it a navel kind of drama quite unlike the performances familiar to
local audiences. This Parsi theatre, which soon came to be known as Nurti
(=this new drama) in Sinhal, was a singular blend of European and Indian
dramatic modes and stagecraft.
In terms of presentation, the
Nuri adhered to the Western concept of an organized, scenic proscenium
stage employing painted backdrops and wings – and of course an enclosed
playhouse. Against the scenic splendour thus achieved were placed gorgeously
costumed personages (chiefly of royal or aristocratic lineage) who acted out
exotic tales of romance and adventure to lilting Hindustani melodies. Audiences
in Colombo found this unusual stage entertainment utterly captivating, as did
their counterparts in the major cities of South and South-East Asia (The Parsi
companies toured extensively.)
Practically overnight, the
Nuti was domesticated. Singhala plays were written on similar material, and
staged in the same manner to the very same music. Playhouse was built in Colombo
to accommodate the Nuti and its rapidly growing audience. Thus was born
the first urban, commercial theatre in Sri Lanka. It flourished in the first tow
decades (both male and female) who made a living out of the theatre, a
stage-struck audience that nightly crowded the several playhouses in Colombo,
and a new profession – that of playwriting.
Like every thriving
commercial theatre, the Nurti needed a regular supply of new plays. This
demand was met by the new Sinhala playwrights who, thought in the craft, learnt
rapidly from the models. Fortunately, they did not limit themselves to the Parsi
creations – they also turned to Sanskrit classical drama and to Shakespeare.
These were rendered in Sinhala, though not with scrupulous fidelity to the
originals. And inevitably, they took up local history and Buddhist lore. Of
these playwrights who fed the Nurti, John de Silva (1857-1922) won the
greatest popularity and a lasting renown. (The first state built theatre in
Colombo is named after him.)
Viewed from the perspective
of dramatic craft, the Nurti plays hardly pass mister. They carry the
deadweight and the crudities of the initial model that inspired the dramatists.
The parsi theatrical was an inelegant hybrid created by grafting the already
outmoded European techniques of staging onto a dramatic form which was itself an
admixture of Indian classical and folk elements. The Sinhala playwrights
retained the prototype’s accent on song, high gesture and spectacle, but did not
address themselves to the task of eliminating its defects and improving the
form.
It is important to remember,
however, that the Nurti writers were true pioneers. Working in a language
that possessed no dramatic literature, thy started practically from scratch. And
though they wrote for a highly competitive commercial stage, many of them (most
particularly John de Silva) did not forget to honor drama as a serious art with
important social and political change by attacking the blind imitation of things
Western, and expressing the rising national consciousness of the Sinhalese.
(This again is a quality best seen in the works of John de Silva.)
In this manner, the Nurti
playwrights contributed much to Sinhala drama. They helped to make it a popular
medium: an art acceptable to a wide social spectrum their work was patronized by
the decorous middle-class (then in the early phase of its growth) as well as the
city populace. Moreover, the plays were published and sold at a modest price.
Though they were read chiefly by the Nurti fans, their publication did
foster the concept of playwriting as a literary art. The tremendous impact the
Nurti had in its time may be gauged by the fact its heyday is still
regarded by some as the golden age of Sinhala theatre.
Despite its great popularity,
the Nurti could not survive into the Thirties. After the advent of the
“bioscope” (the cinema) it became hard to sustain the stage financially. The
decline was rapid. Ironically, the Indian-made films that proved a major
challenge to the theatre were themselves fashioned on the very same Parsi
theatre that begot the Nurti. Notwithstanding the language barrier, these
films were able to seduce the audience away from drama. The Nurti stuck
to its formula and did not change sufficiently to meet the new
competition.(other Parsi inspired theatres in the region met with the same
fate.)Symbolically, the leading playhouse – The Tower Hall – was converted into
a movie house, signaling the end of the brief but lively epoch of the first but
lively epoch of the first Sinhala urban theatre.
Some of the “classical”
Nurti pieces are occasionally revived but if they hold audiences today, it
is mainly because of their beautiful melodies. Yet the form itself is far from
dead: the scores of amateur festivals (Vessak, Poson) are cast in the
Nurti mould, though they do not generally go by that name. One always finds
in them the amalgam of the melodramatic and the comic, the sung and the
declaimed dialogue, and the loose, episodic structure so characteristic of the
Nurti. The lavish spectacle of the Nurti cannot be reproduced on the high
booth stages put up for these productions, but the same interest in costume
prevails.
Incidentally, it is worth
nothing that the presentation of plays in connection with the Vesak and
Poson festivals has greatly increased during the past few years. Though
by no means solemn in tone, these dramas are built around Buddhist themes and
Jataka tales (birth stories of the Buddha.) They are done largely by
inexperienced amateurs in wayside booths. They are enormously popular with the
bulk of the sightseers who throng the streets during the festive nights. And
like all folk theatre, they are “free shows”.
Sinhala theatre as a
commercial, urban medium ended its first phase with the arrival of the cinema
and the consequent decline of the Nurti. It tried agin – during the
period of World War II – with another kind of product: a drama with a more
immediate social base and a tighter structure than the Nurti. Sometime
described as the Jayamanne plays (after one of the principal writes and actors),
these works treated contemporary concerns and problems such a s the evils of
caste, and the dowry system of marriage. But they were really domestic
melodramas peopled by characters rather over-endowed with endowed with emotion.
Though somewhat better
constructed than the average Nurti work, these plays were no great
contribution to Sinhala dramaturgy. They mixed the realistic and the
far-fetched, the comic and the sentimental in indiscriminate fashion; they also
used song, though not as extensively stage, however, the companies that
performed this drama toured the country, doing one-night stands wherever basic
stage facilities were available.
There plays filled a tangible
gap in the entertainment field: there was as yet no Sinhala-language cinema, and
they brought to the local audiences something that approximated to what the
Tamil and Hindi films purveyed. Before long, they themselves migrated to the
silver screen, and in its initial stages, the Sinhala cinema (the first film was
made in 1947) subsisted almost entirely on them. The Jayamannes also
became the first star names of the Sinhala screen.
The Nurti and the
Jayamanne plays were merely the precursors, not the begetters of the modern
Sinhala drama. They set the stage, so to speak , by establishing certain basic
conventions, such as the proscenium stage, the theatre made its transition to
the cit. Modern Sinhala drama was born under other, more literary-oriented
auspices – namely, that of the western-educated intelligentsia. For example, at
the Ceylon University College (as the nucleus of the present university system
was known), Sinhala translations and adaptations of the modern classics were
annually presented. These productions, though seen only by small, other things,
they helped in the forging of a stage language free from the ornate rhetoric of
the Nruti, and the bombast of the Jayamanne plays.
Meanwhile, several amateur
theatrical groups outside t he university too were making sporadic attempts to
produce works suitable for a modern Sinhala stage – that is, dramas not flowing
directly from the Nurti and the Jayamanne traditions. Here also the
inspirations were the Western drama **
Such were the modest and
tentative beginnings of the rapidly enlarging stream of modern drama. At that
time (not more than three decades ago) the literati who took part in such
activities did not see much artistic value or aesthetic possibilities in the
indigenous theatres. They believed that the future development of Sinhala drama
depended on learning from and following appropriate international models,
chiefly European ones. Since they were thinking in terms of a realistic dialogue
drama, this was entirely logical – there were no Sinhala models to follow.
Throughout the Forties and
the early Fifties, various experiment in dramatic writing and production were
made along there lines. Some were very successful (e.g. the adaptation of
Gogol’s The Inspector- General), but their wit and sparkle, and their
theatrical polish were not sufficient to fire the imagination of writers and
entice new audiences to the theatre. The significant breakthrough came in 1956
(in many ways a memorable year for Sri Lanka) With a play called Maname.
Ediriweera Sarchchandra, a
professor at the University, had been studying the indigenous theatrical
traditions for the creation of a non-realistic dramatic form for the modern
stage. In 1956 he startled the local theatre world with Maname, a
dramatization of a Buddhist Jatake tales (already familiar to Koalm audiences)
are in the Nadagam style. As a theatrical achievement, the new play was
as unexpected as it was brilliant, for both patrons and practitioners of the
modern Sinhala drama had long consigned the Nadagama to the limbo of
things irrelevant ti the contemporary stage.
Maname,
it must be emphasized, was not solely an attempt at revivinig a folk genre, as
it is sometimes misconstrued to be. In essence, what Sarachchadra did to was to
extract certain formal and technical elements form the old Nadamama, and
employ them in the fashioning of a modern non-realistic stage play The
Nadagama, as noted earlier, used highly formalized methods of presentation
and a distinctive music. Sarachchandra adopted the basic presentational methods
(especially those relating to the introduction of the fermatas personae),
gesture, modes of speech, and above all, the music. He also re-interpreted the
old story – “modernized” it, in a manner of speaking. Traditionally Maname
had been a quite anti-feminist moral fable. The story concerns a prince,
Maname, highly adept in the martial arts, who gets lost in a forest on his
Journey home with his beautiful young bride. They are desires the princess, and
tells Maname to leave her behind or face death. The prince kills the
entire band, finally overcomes the king and asks the princess for his sword to
the forester. Having killed Maname, the forester asks the princess to
take off all her Jewellery. He then chides the princess for her treacherous
behaviour, and leaves with her belongings. Now utterly alone, the princes end
her life by biting off her tongue.
Sarachandra changed this
traditional version in several salient points. In his play, the forester-king
dismisses his cohorts and fights single-handed with the prince. The princess
pleads for his life, pointing out that he was valiant enough not to use his
armed followers. Maname is taken aback by this argument, and momentarily
relaxes his grip on the captive. The forester frees himself, snatches the sword
from the princess and kills the prince. And he abandons her only when she
confesses that she fell in love with him the instant she saw him, and indeed
planned to give the sword not to he husband but to him. The princess does not
kill herself but dies of a broken heart, as the choric narrator reports to the
audience. The chorus leader also comments that he does not know who is to blame
for the tragedy.
It would be evident from this
brief description that Sarachchandra’s concerns were very different form these
of the makers of traditional theatre. What he expressed was an emerging
consciousness preoccupied with the problems of morality. The Nadagama
form enabled him to reduce the central experience to its essence and project it
with great power. And he made masterly use of the musical element. Sarachchandra
combed the entire Nadagama repertoire, and chose the finest melodies
available. The writing itself was and achievement of a high order, superior to
anything heard of the Sinhala stage up to that time. Even at its best, the
Nurti language lacked stylistic integrity, and Jarred the ear with its
indiscriminate mixing of the ornate and the homely. Sarachchandra maintained a
consistent literary idiom of dramatic force and much lyric beauty. With
Maneame, Sinhala dramatic writing achieved dome measure of poetic
richness.
On the boards, all of this
added up ‑to superb theatre – and a moving dramatic experience. But, apart from
pleasing its audience, Maname stimulated the Sinhalal theatre, fertilized
it with fresh ideas, gave intimations of new possibilities, brought artistic
respectability to drama composed in Sinhala, and helped to attract a new
audience. Although Maname burst upon the theatre scene practically
unannounced, it was not an isolated event in the large perspective. Politically,
socially, culturally, the nation was going through a very important period of
change and re-occupation. One pervasive feature of these years was the
per-occupation with questions of nationhood and cultural identity. For a country
that became independent only in 1947 after several centuries of colonial rule,
these were issue of major significance. Their corollary, especially in a country
with a high rate of literacy, was an increasing involvement with the national
languages and with traditional culture. Increasingly, it was being felt that the
people had to return to their traditional roots – their language, their
religion, their arts – if they were to achieve nationhood.
Maname was absolutely in keeping with this tide of feeling more; it was positive proof that the ideal of a national art was no empty dream.
In these different ways, then
Maname infused a fund of vitality, and brought a new direction into
Sinhala drama. And most of them drew upon traditional forms – the Nadagama
itself, Silari, Thovil – and folk dance and music. Not unexpectedly, the
experimentation revealed both the potentialities and the limitations of the
indigenous theatrical resources. It became apparent before long that the pursuit
of one particular genre was not the most fertile approach to tradition.
The Ndagama proved to
be an object lesson in this regard. The playwrights who essayed it faced the
inescapable problem of music. Being an operatic from, the Nadagama places
exceptional demands on music – and on a particular style of music at that. And
these demands the composers were unable to satisfy in adequate measure. The
existing body of Nadagama songs was neither large nor varied enough to
meet the new situation. Sarachchandra picked out the best melodies for Maname,
and for his second creation in the same style, Sinhabahu (1961), he had to
depend to some extent on new compositions.
The totally sung drama –
represented by the Nadagma – was gradually abandoned, though in the first
flush of re-discovery, it was regarded by many as the most promising form.
Sarachchndra himself worked in it only twice. There were other reasons besides
the music for the disenchantment with the Nadagama, Because of its high
degree of stylization; this form could admit only a limited range of subject
matter. Its conventions seemed inhospitable to contemporary characters and
situations.
While the Nadagama was
given up as too limited and too demanding to a from, the engagement with the
traditional theatres continued unabated, and the bulk of the new works presented
on the Sinhala stage carried distinctive marks of the encounter. The poorest
among them were no more variety “shows” naturally; this seemingly excessive
dependence on the traditional drama generated a lot of criticism. It was argued
that Sinhala drama was sacrificing content to the allurement of the recently
found theatrical modes. The function of drama in a changing society, it was
pointed out, was to deal with contemporary issues, and this could be done best
in the realistic style.
The criticism was not
unfounded, for a good many of the new makers of Sinhala theatre appeared to be
less interested in what they said than how they said it. However, the debate did
generate a lot of heat, and the Sinhala theatre seemed to divide itself into tow
camps – “thaathvika” and “shaileegatha” meaning realistic and non-realistic
respectively. These appeared to be tow distinctive directions, and the
playwright, it was said, had to choose one or the other. By the mid-Sixties,
however, the polarization became rather meaningless, for the two paths had
actually begun to converge.
Sinhala playwrights and
directors now move with facility thorough the entire territory, using any folk
element that suits their purpose, without strictly adhering to one single form.
A few among them, though, have refused to venture into realistic modes,
maintaining that their particular approach to drama, which is poetic, precludes
realism. Strict naturalism, however, is a rarity on the Sinhala stage.
Free experimentation with
traditional forms has enabled the Sinhala theatre to build up a rich storehouse
of theatrical tools. But the indigenous resources are far from exhausted; in
fact, they have only been touched.
As in the other arts, in theatre too, the idea of a specifically Sinhala from which is distinctive and identifiable as such, is proposed as a desirable and necessary goal. In this regard, it may be said that modern Sinhala theatre does have an undeniable flavour and character of its own, despite its obvious eclecticism. At its finest, the modern Sinhala theatre is a harmonious, creative blend of Western and native concepts and conventions, a far cry from the Parsi pastiche that brought the Nurti into being.
*The Christian religious drama developed
later than the Nadagama, under the diredt auspices of the Catholic Church, as a
separate genre based on European Nativity plays and the Corpus Christi. They
were semi-musical and not unrelated to the folk theatre forms. This “passion
play” tradition is not as active as it used to be, but several productions are
still regularly performed during Easter time in the predominantly Catholic areas
of the Western coastal belt.
** Western drama has continued to be an
important factor in the development of modern Sinhala theatre. Productions of
Western drama in English, however, have proved to a marginal presence, though
not an entirely insignificant one.