‘Our education system creates young dinosaurs’ - Ruwanthie de Chickera

Award winning playwright and director Ruwanthie de Chickera believes that there is no gender inequality in the contemporary Sri Lankan arts field and that the field is very open to women today. “Yet, however, other pressures of society – like judgment of women artistes, pressures of family life, prejudices and double standards of society pull women artistes down more than they pull male artistes down,” she said. “Within the industry itself, I feel that there is a lot of respect and space for women to work,” she said speaking to The Nation about her latest play and the path she traveled.

Working in the field for more than 15 years now, Ruwanthie’s plays have been produced in Sri Lanka, the UK, Japan, India, Australia and the Philippines. She reminisced that the influence she received from her school, Methodist College, Colombo, played a big part in setting the path in writing and theater.  She recalled the memories in the school theater. “Playing a female role for the first time in my final year in school is an unforgettable memory. Because of my height, I had been always cast in male roles,” Ruwanthie said adding how she wrote a play which finally allowed her to play a female role on school stage. “I wrote a play with only female characters. And that finally set things right.”

Ruwanthie was just 16 years old when she was first put on the professional stage. She says that she is unaware of the factor which inspired her to develop affection towards theater and art, yet whichever that is, it is deep seated and also continues to motivate her. She wrote her first professionally recognized play at the age of 19 and it was picked up by the Royal Court Theater in London’s West End and was first performed there. “I guess this was the turning point which pretty much decided my future,” she reflected.

Her first play won the British Council International New Playwriting Award (1997) and was performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London. In 2000 she was awarded the Gratiaen Prize. She is also the recipient of the 2001 Presidential Scholarship for Theatre from the Government of Sri Lanka. 

In 2000, Ruwanthie, with a group of friends set up the Stages Theatre Group which she considers as another significant milestone in her career. Stages Theatre Group is a theatre company committed to create socially conscious and cutting edge original Sri Lankan Theatre.  

 Ruwanthie’s first screenplay ‘Machang’ won several awards internationally, including Best Film at the 2008 Venice Film Festival and the Best Screenplay Award at the Durban I.F.F. She believes that Machang is a special movie because of the balance it maintains between a comedy and a tragedy. “I am a big fan of this mix.  I believe it brings out truths in an unusual way,” she said, admiring her work. “I was very lucky with Machang. I knew the movie would get made and shown. This is very rare opportunity for an artiste in Sri Lanka,” she added.

According to the critics Machang evidenced that Sri Lankan movie makers could still make films with powerful messages, meaning that there is a lot of potential in the field. Yet, the critics themselves condemn the field for not producing acceptable Sinhala films. When asked, Ruwanthie said that there is couple of reasons behind why we don’t see many fine Sri Lankan productions or powerful movie plots. “This happens mainly because our artistes have to struggle so hard, against such odds, for so long to make a movie. Then, even after they make it, they can't show it. There is no money and there is so little support,” she stressed that it is very frustrating situation.  

When asked whether she is satisfied with the effort made by the young artistes in the film industry today, she said that she doesn’t believe that the problem lies with the effort that is put into the industry. “There is a lot of people who are working very hard, completely alone, to make films.  However there is no support for them.” She reiterated.  

“What 'needs to be done' is a can of worms isn't it?” she asked. “Basically we need a complete re-addressing of our priorities as a society.  Unless we become a country and a people and a government that value good and quality art, who value the depth and the heights that art can take society to, we will always be in this rut of sporadic success stories in the midst of many, many failings,” she said. “If we support our artistes properly, we can then demand that they produce quality work,” she added.

Speaking further about the contemporary Sri Lankan theater, she pointed out that we do not have a strong culture of criticism which could help shape fine dramatists and take art to a higher level in society. She explained that a strong culture of criticism is necessary for art to survive and to penetrate deeper into people's lives and also for self-reflection and social change. “We don't have a strong culture of criticism. There are a few good critics but they also work very much on their own - and their work is not picked up adequately by society.  This is because we don't have a surrounding culture which supports criticism,” she pointed out.

As she elucidated, at a very basic level, in order to produce good critics, we need to produce people who are familiar with critical thinking - people who are drawn to the practice of 'thinking critically'. “Unfortunately our entire education system, which runs on ridiculous levels of reproduction of notes and memorizing, does not produce young people who are prone to critical thinking,” she said. . “In an age where exams are redundant and information is no longer a privilege, our entire education system runs on forcing millions of children to spend almost 20 years of their lives memorizing and memorizing useless notes in order to pass exams. Young people we are creating are dinosaurs; not equipped to be useful to society.  Because society no longer needs people who have stored up buckets of knowledge about things that already exist,” she added.

 “With a very few exceptions, most of our schools and universities are still producing people who can only reproduce what has already been taught them.  They cannot look at something and see what it could be, what is lacking, cannot connect it to wider and deeper issues, or think of anything original,” she expressed her dissatisfaction.

She reiterated that the problem of lack of critical thinking goes beyond arts. “We are very far behind, as a society, compared to where the world is headed,” she said. “This problem of lack of critical thinking is wider than an arts issue.  In fact the arts seems to be one of the few disciplines that even sees this as something important to instill in society,” she noted.

There are many fine Sinhala theater productions today. Yet, not many gets adapted to English or Tamil. Ruwanthie supposes that adapting the dramas to English would help them claim international recognition. “This is one of the reasons that we have stated working in both English and Sinhala. We want our plays to be both local and international, immediately.  This opened up many doors. You have to put in a little more effort for this, but it is worth it,” she emphasized.  

She also spoke about her latest play, ‘Walking Path’. This is a play that was devised along the several walking paths of Colombo.  It is a play that tries to understand what is happening to the city and its people as a result of the emergence of the walking paths of Colombo city.  It addresses the city’s new found interest in exercise and healthy living; it profiles the urban dweller’s obsession with technology and recreation.  It looks at the control and maintenance of these places created for public use. The drama was first staged in July this year.

She said that the drama is an examination of human behavior in the pleasure parks. “There is no plot.  There is a concept.  The concept is the impact of the walking paths and this intense drive to 'beautify' Colombo after the war, on society.  It’s an examination of human behavior in these parks. It’s simply about what this tells us about our people, and our country,” she said.

Yet, ‘Walking Path’ is a play without words. “Communication is not only through words.  In fact, words are often a big obstacle to communication. They often stand in the way of honest communication.  We pay far too much attention words when we communicate,” Ruwanthie said adding that removing words from the performance was a relief almost. “It left us with the basics of human communication - which is incredibly complex and subtle and open when it is not limited and defined by words,” she explained. Also, in these parks, all behavior is on public display.  We can see everything but we don't hear anything. The play reflects this situation of people watching people,” she added.  

Dr. Sunil Wijesiriwardena commenting on Ruwanthie’s play said that the play pushes the boundaries of the imagination about the lifestyles created by the contemporary socio-political base in the near future. The most dangerous suppression may not come in the familiar image of suppression, but in an innocent image beloved by you. When things you love are compiled and supplied by the system, look at it with judgment and suspicion.

Ruwanthie commenting on the audience’s response she received so far said that she is overwhelmed by it. “People have truly responded very strongly to the play.  They have loved its relevance; they find it timely and very insightful. They seemed to find it very politically interesting,” she said. “Also, they loved the form we chose, the 'no words' discipline of the performance. It seemed to have created a new theatrical experience for the audience,” she added.