A dance of ‘being’ and ‘vision’

The scene is suspiciously low-key for a play rehearsal. Five men sit in a row, talking, suddenly bursting into defensive anger or murmuring in soft dejected tones. Sitting in the audience is a voyeuristic experience. Hearing their stories, fears and despondence makes one wonder how one specific organ can control a man’s life.

When Identities Inc takes the stage this August, they will be answering many unasked questions in their version of Martin Casella’s “The Irish Curse”.

Identities Inc made a dramatic entrance into local theatre in 2014 with sold-out performances of David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize winning play “Glengarry Glen Ross.” The group comprises some of local theatre’s already established, though young names along with other artistic personalities. Glengarry wasn’t the directorial debut of Gehan Blok but it was his first major production with Identities (of which he is a founding member).

Blok needs little introduction to local theatregoers. His theatre roots go back to Interschool Shakespeare Drama Competitions. Known for his much relished performances as the villain of the piece, he has also taken on major roles in musical theatre and comedy.

When it comes to directing, Blok’s vision is to continually try different genres and styles. For his second time in the director’s chair, Blok and Identities are slowly surpassing the image of a production company putting on a play purely for entertainment. They enjoy their share of laughs; but Blok knew from the very beginning what sort of plays he wanted to produce. “I prefer to do drama for adult audiences” for the simple reason that it allows him to push boundaries, in terms of script and content, he says.

He knew it needed to be staged the moment he read it. “The Irish Curse” premiered in 2005 to a sold out run. It won the Overall Excellence Award for Outstanding Playwriting at the New York International Fringe Festival and made its European debut at the 2006 Edinburgh Fringe Festival to rave reviews.

“What I love is the dialogue” explains Blok. Casella’s seamless writing is 90 minutes of brutally explicit, hilarious and thought provoking dialogue with minimum movement. Revolving around five Irish men living in New York, the sole backdrop is a Catholic Church basement where a priest conducts a self-help group for men.

Another arresting if not landmark feature of the play is its theme. “You don’t usually hear men talk about their insecurities” he adds.

From its burning dialogue to intimate character portrayals, the play questions the often unmentionable topic of male sexuality, manhood and vulnerability along with body image.

When he first showed the script to his all male cast, it was surprisingly welcomed. “Men are very different when they are with other men” allowing audiences to see facades and emotional walls come crumbling down with each character’s confession and deep seated insecurity. It also says a lot about the young director’s style. He is upfront about the explicit content, which he does not intend to sugar coat and make subtle. Having acted in programmes such as the Grassrooted Trust’s annual V-Day, Blok was moved by the packed audience at this year’s edition. He sees the obvious risk of not reaching every possible person, but it’s a message he thinks is important. If he had his way, he would even relax the age limit, allowing older teenagers to watch. “That’s the time teenagers are going through these changes and learning about themselves.”

With only two weeks to go the cast are expectantly waiting in the wings. Controversial or not, the director only hopes his audience will go back home with an enlightened perspective.

Identities Inc presents “The Irish Curse” in association with Samuel French Inc. The cast comprises of Dominic Keller, Gehan Blok, Andre Perera, Dino Corera and Pasan Ranaweera. The play goes on the boards from August 7 to 9 at the Lionel Wendt. Tickets priced at Rs. 2000, 1500, 1000 and 600 and are available at the Lionel Wendt. The play is for adults.

By Russell Bowden

So much of what passes today in Sri Lanka for ‘contemporary dance’ are movements and gestures borrowed from, or based upon, acting. Not so with Kapila Palihawadana’s nATANDA company’s performances. These are all firmly grounded in, and genuinely founded on, classical western ballet and contemporary dance techniques without which performances would be empty of ‘Being’. [As an example: Picasso could draw excellently-well and paint with colour and invention before his styles developed sometimes a simplicity of line if not of composition! George Keyt also understood the need firstly for a solidly-grounded mastery of line and drawing and of painting techniques before embarking on similar ‘simplifying’ processes. Whilst today too many art students cheat by trying to copy simplicity of form but without any underlying mastery of techniques. The results? Paintings of pretty, colourful and highly-formalised curved shapes of people that communicate nothing of relationships nor express any messages of what - if anything - they mean to each other. They are empty of communications of expressions and thus of ‘Being’.] To drive more than 160 kilometres for more than five hours to Kandy for a performance lasting approximately ninety minutes might seem disproportionate, extravagant and scarcely justifiable. But it was to prove not so, indeed, to be the opposite.

nATANDA is a truly ‘professional’ company in the best sense of that word; ‘professional’ from ‘to profess’ i.e. a faith = “taken the vows of a religious order ... declare openly, avow...” - the choreographer to his vision; the Company to dancing it and where it is disciplined, welltrained, rigorously rehearsed, energetically declaring openly that it is totally committed to the actions required by the performance and to dance as a single co-operativelyengaged group / troupe of dancers each holding onto and displaying a ‘character’ capable of, and re-acting to, the partner(s) and all of the dancers in their interpretation of the ‘vision’.

Everything in the performances of all the dancers in Kandy [on Saturday June 27 at the Hindu Cultural Centre] provided such proof. Evidenced also in the stagecraft exemplified by simple, colourful, relevant to character, well-maintained and sympathetically presented costumes - each illustrative of the character being mirrored on the stage with lighting [from less than adequate equipment] which - as should always be the case in ballet and dance - was as ‘plastic’, fluid, informative and relevant so as to, as best as possible, illuminate, enhance, illustrate and inform the work in performance.

In such a [co-operative] company individual dancers’ performances ought not to be highlighted except to emphasise that none could be faulted. Kapila’s and individual dancer’s [because much appeared to have grown out of company improvisations] choreography appeared seductively easy [although always ‘easy’ on the eye!] but most difficult physically and athletically to perform with ambitious ‘leaps’ and classically-based male and female ‘pas de deux lifts’,‘shoulder sits’ or ‘presage lifts’ etc. with the males catching and hoisting aloft over their heads dancers in apparently [but not so] effortless moves serving to emphasise not only each dancer’s professionalism but also hidden to the audience [as should always be the case in classical western ballet] these enviable skills associated with classical training.

Each of the seven / eight [??] pieces danced - there was, unfortunately, no programme proof, if proof was needed, of the paucity of funds available to a company so worthy - perhaps even more so than many others less good but more powerfully politically-related! - but this one left bereft of the Minister for Culture’s financial support which could complement those of the Goethe Institute and British Council. [Why, one must ask in parenthesis, when politicians, only too happy to boast of Sri Lanka’s ‘rich cultural heritage’, does the Ministry fail to have any ‘riches’ for these companies - i.e. Chitrasena and Vajira for years left un-financed by the Ceylon State until President Chandrika Kumaratunga stepped in with its Park Road site] instead governments unashamedly leave their responsibilities to foreign agencies to provide what should in the first instance be their acceptance of their national responsibilities.]

Never for a moment was the stage left vacant of movement - one’s ‘vision’ was always filled and one’s attention held - much of it so inventively that one was never left in doubt as to the ‘origin’ of the character being performed. Many moves exhibited a plasticity in the choreographic invention as well as the difficult but superb execution and athletic actions of the dancers — so that the word ‘plasticity’ was never, as one watched, far from the forefront of one’s mind.

All-in-all although a short evening it proved to be one that provided the greatest pleasure in visions and imaginations but most of all of