To commemorate Shakespeare’s 400th death anniversary

Commemorating the 400th death anniversary of the greatest playwright William Shakespeare, ‘Premawantha Kumarayo’, Sinhala adaptation of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ produced by Drama and Theatre and Image Arts Unit of the Kelaniya University and Academic Players theatre group will go on the boards on July 23 at Lionel Wendt theatre, Colombo.

Based on a translation of Jayawathi Jayasinghe, the play which is produced by Lal Handapangoda is directed by veteran actor and theatre lecturer Priyankara Ratnayake. Director of ‘Oedipus’, ‘Thatu Ewith’ and ;Wisekariyo’, ‘Premawantha Kumarayo’ is his latest play.

“Filmmakers of many countries have been influ- enced by the works of William Shakespeare and a large number of films have been produced based on his plays,” said Priyankara Ratnyake. The vivid and colourful characters together with depth are among the main reasons for Shakespeare’s plays to be popular even today.

Priyankara is of the view that there was false perception about Shakespearian plays in Sri Lanka. “Many thought that ordinary people cannot understand his plays. Some even thought everybody cannot understand Shakespeare and there were taboos. There were only a handful of people like Tony Ranasinghe and Bandula Vithanage who translated Shakespeare’s plays to Sinhala. However the reality is that Shakespeare wrote plays for ordinary people,”. Asked for the reason to select ‘A Midsummer’s Night Dream’ to make a Sinhala play, Priyankara said that the play was a real comedy in its proper sense. “Comedy has been misunderstood by Sri Lankan theatre. A play with any jokes cannot be a comedy. Comedy plays have a depth and that is why Shakespeare’s comedies are so important,” Priyankara said.

“Sri Lankan theatre both English and Sinhala have promoted a genre of theatre to attract the audience that was glued to television. So directors used same faces in the TV dramas in theatre but now it has proved a failure,” he said. The same problem is there in the English theatre also, he added.

The cast comprised of Priyankara Ratnayake, Sajitha Danuththara Anthony, Ishara Wickremasinghe, Premaratne Thennakone, Harshika Ratnayake and Mahesh Umagiliya. Prameeth Dahanayake handles music direction and costumes of ‘Premawantha Kumarayo’ is done by Harshika Ratnayake and Mahesh Umagiliya.