Staying afloat on the drama stream - Interview with Director of Johnge Saththu Watta

“A person should make a connection with an animal if he can’t make a connection with another human being,” says a man who has lost his mother and father and whose memories of failed relationships puzzle him. This man, John, addresses his audience from the zoo, telling them about the value of making relationships appearing in the stage play; Johnge Saththu Watta (John’s Zoo). Director of Johnge Saththu Watta, Gayan Randheera spoke to The Nation about the similarities he sees in the story Johnge Saththu Watta and of contemporary society and why John says that this relationship is essential.

Johnge Saththu Watta is Gayan Randeera’s third stage play and has reached over 40 performances of late.  Randeera plans to travel around the country this year with John’s zoo. Randheera’s enthusiasm for directing stage dramas was inculcated from his school days in Kalpitiya Nirmala Matha Vidyalaya. “I am a Catholic and eager to make dramas for Christmas and Easter. That’s when I began to hone my talent. I forged ahead with the experiences I gathered in my school and the dharma schools,” he explained. After Randheera was selected to the University of Kelaniya in 2003, he received ample opportunities to expand his capabilities as his subjects in the University included Drama and theater studies. He first directed a play called Kadadasi Baloonaya (Paper Balloon) and then a Greek play called Agamemnon. Johnge Saththu Watta is his third play. “I started this drama four years back. Although I had studied about it at my American drama classes in university,” he recalled. Gayan Randheera also teaches drama and theater studies at Lumbini College, Colombo and is a visiting lecturer at the University of Kelaniya.

Johnge Saththu Watta was adapted to Sinhala from an American Stage play; ‘The Zoo Story’ which was originally titled Peter and Jerry by American playwright Edward Albee in 1958. The last show of Johnge Saththu Watta was on December 28, 2013 and the next is scheduled in Kurunegala in February 28. “I started comparing the plot with our contemporary society when I first studied this. It is an absurd play which shows our day to day routines and how we struggle to make relationships. It is a very hard task for the common man to survive in the society today similar to John in the play. I have experienced this myself, when I moved from my village to the city for my studies,” he explained.

While Radeera was directing the story in his mind, he met Dinesh Sandaruwan, now a final year student at University of Kelaniya. According to Randheera his appearance fitted John’s profile. “That is when the actual process started,” he said. “There are some people whom we reject just by looking at their appearance or what they wear. We have a natural tendency to look down on them, guessing they belong to a horrifying category of drug addicts, thieves or beggars,” he said. “However it all depends on how much that individual is earning since money is the factor which turns him in to the person whom he looks like.” he added.

John is an isolated and disheartened man who failed to build any form of a relationship with others. In the play, John possesses an empty photo frame. He doesn’t have anyone’s picture to put in it. He is completely alone in life. His parents abandoned him. “We need a relationship to survive; maybe with our parents, maybe work. However we need something or the other. But we are failing in making relationships today” he stressed. “When the physical relationships started to fail, our parents were used to build a relationship with the unknown; maybe with God or maybe with a Bo tree. It helped them to survive. Even that’s not there anymore,” he added.

The other character Lenin, which is played by Lenin Liyanage, belongs to a middle class family. He is happily married and has two daughters. He has two kittens at his home and two parakeets for the two daughters. He likes to be alone sometimes, so he comes to the park bench to read books. That is where these two incompatibles meet. John is desperate to have a meaningful conversation with Lenin which ends up in bringing ill-fate to him.

Randeera believes that this transformation happened with time when Sri Lanka took the expressway in the direction of rapid development. “It all began, when people started running towards money; to earn more. Who has time to spend on society or relationships?” he asked. He opined that this may have happened because we welcomed physical development too fast. Social system today makes us buy a television. Therefore we have to pay for it and thereafter for the electricity it consumes. We have to have a car and it follows a fuel bill. “Therefore we have to earn extra money. If we stop and turn back, we will be considered as failures. Therefore there is no going back,” he said.

He believes that people still honor the artistes. "People still love art. Parents still like to send their children to the singing star shows. It’s just that they don't see a financially successful future for them to make their children artistes," he reiterated. “Parents would want their children to live in a comfortable house, drive a car, but not to spend each rupee they earn on art which brings them no money in return. They compare their child with the child who earns 500,000 rupees making software or treating patients" he added.

Continuing to explain the financial situation of Sri Lankan dramatists he said that a person cannot engage in theater productions fulltime as a beginner and needs extra financial aid to continue with lives. "I would engage with theater full time if I can. But what I earn from theater is not enough to spend for its own growth. We are helpless in that regard that we have to engage in other careers," he lamented. He opined that theater is only a place where they can find self satisfaction. He believes that this is the same reason why the directors are losing their interest in making stage plays. "It’s less dangerous to make films, where they can earn money. Who has a guarantee for the stage play? What if the audience doesn’t accept it?" he queried. “If an audience accepts it and the director has a built-up reputation and the capability to go around the country with his work, maybe he will start making money with a stage play. Or else it is an unattainable goal,” he explained.

Pic by Chandana Wijesinghe

Facilities are limited for theater production in Sri Lanka. The tickets for the theater shows are also expensive. Therefore it is almost a facility only the rich can afford. "We've to pay the crew; we've to pay for the stage which is very expensive. When all this is calculated it exceeds 1000 rupees. What can we do?” he asked. Randheera pointed out that this abandonment goes hand in hand with the country’s development. “Look at Nelum Pokuna, it is a blessing. There is no issue. Everyone from all over the country can come to Colombo and watch a stage play,” he said sarcastically, adding, “If you want to book Nelum Pokuna you have to pay 800,000 rupees. Which drama director can risk investing such money, in fact searching for such fund is no easy task,” he expressed his grief. “If people can come to Colombo to see a stage play, if they can spend over 5,000 rupees for a ticket, there is no issue. If those millions of money wasted were spent to renovate the theaters in each district that would have come as a real blessing to the dramatist,” he stressed.

He has confidence that dramatists can be more successful in conveying messages to the community than politicians. “If the actor is successful enough he can convey to the audience an unforgettable message. It is as twice as powerful as a message of a politician. Theater stage is the best place to tell the world what you have to tell, to show them where you stand and the actor is the best person to give a message to the society. There is no doubt about that,” he opined.

He said that he has observed how people in the audience change with the messages hidden in the dialogues. “A person spoke to me on the phone recently said he didn’t like the drama when he watched it. He was feeling uncomfortable due to the harsh words used in the dialogues since he had brought his daughter with him. When he called me, it was after two or three months after they watched it. He was thanking me for the changes occurred in the way his daughter thinks,” he said. “There has been a person who was begging for money by singing in buses. His daughter has insisted on helping the poor man saying ‘pau, he looks like John aiya’. That is when he realized the politics in the story,” he continued.

He studied the syllabus of drama and theater studies at the University as a student. As he mentioned there have been some effective modifications to the syllabus since then. He appreciated the efforts of the lecture panel and The Academic Players Unit of the University of Kelaniya for the contribution they are making towards Sri Lankan theater.

In conclusion he admitted that Sri Lanka lacks autonomous scripts in theater. “Autonomous scripts require maturity. There are only very few dramatists who have gained that maturity. That is the reason why there are less local stories. However, even if we continue to produce foreign scripts I don’t see any fault in it since story plots are similar to what everyone is going through or what everyone feels. We can adapt the stories to suit our audience,” he pointed out. However Randheera said that he has not yet reached the maturity required to make an autonomous script. “I’m not there yet, in fact I am nowhere near. Let’s see how far I will travel,” he said.