Skellig, a unique and inspiring play

On 12 February at 7:30 p.m. at the CIS Auditorium; tickets at the reception

Science and spirituality, two subjects that usually oppose each other, come together in wonderful harmony in Skellig, a Colombo International School Intermediate production, based on David Almond’s award-winning children’s novel. 

Veteran dramatist and the Head of English and Performing Arts of CIS, Vinod Senadheera has yet again strayed from the norms of slapstick and opted for a thought-provoking yet mesmerising choice for his cast and audience. 

It has moonlight and owls and magic and poetry (a lot of William Blake references); conjectures on evolution, from birds to apes and Darwin; Chinese takeout, soccer games and mended hearts; helplessness and hope; tragedies and miracles. 

Contrary to impressions that the play would be “too heavy”, delving into matters beyond the aptitude of younger audience, it in fact creates magic and preserves innocence, through the eyes of an adolescent, Michael. 

Young Michael (Rishane Dassanayake) had just moved with his dad (Deyhan Kamalgoda) and pregnant mum (Eshana Amarasinghe) to an old but bigger house, to accommodate the growing family. 

The baby, born prematurely, is gravely ill and fighting for her life. Left to his own devices, Michael, against his parent’s strict warning, enters the rickety garage on the property. Here he discovers a poor excuse for a man, an evil-smelling tramp of few words, to whom Michael delivers aspirin and Chinese leftovers. This is the character who’d later be known as Skellig (played by Kenula De Alwis).

To make sure he hasn’t imagined the strange discovery, Michael asks his neighbour and new friend, Mina (Mahima Passela), to accompany him. Home-schooled and wise beyond her years, Mina reassures Michael that “truth and dreams are always getting muddled”; together, they find that Skellig is both real and surreal… with great bird wings on his shoulders (an evolved bird or an angel fallen to earth?). Their interaction with Skellig would change their lives and those of the people they love. 

In a seemingly “normal” context of a middleclass family undergoing a trying time, the play side-steps the obvious, and challenges conventions. Skellig is the unlikeliest heavenly host – hideous in appearance and manner, in a derelict garage reminiscent of an evil, haunted house. 

It challenges if it is only what we see and know that is real, or if reality is only bound by our imagination. It challenges the notion of “helplessness” – Michael is the epitome of it. It even challenges the concept of magic – a sense that there is just as much magic in owls and birds as Mina finds, as we see in Skellig. 

And the realisation that the world is full of mysteries, some of will remain so, as Mina points out. Then the key question becomes not so much who Skellig is (angel, alien or missing link in evolution theory) but whether he and the critically-ill baby sister Michael loves so fiercely, can survive. Death is all around and inevitable. But so is life.

The play ends truly inspirational and heart-warming, without the sentimentality common with a happy ending.

The school’s auditorium stage is transformed, seamlessly, from an eerie dilapidated garage, to a warm family room of a new family, to a sterile and tense hospital environment. It effectively sets the scene and does not detract from the build-up of suspense, real points of climax, or elements of surprise…

The casting is tailor-made. Rishane Dassanayake as Michael is your typical 10-year-old grappling with what is clearly too much for him. His inner thoughts hauntingly conveyed by a host of narrators, adds to both the depth and the genuineness of the character, building empathy within the audience. 

Mahima Passela, who gives life to the precocious Mina, brilliantly conveys the easy, unruffled demeanor of the character, winning the admiration of the viewer with her wisdom. 

And Skellig, devastated and pathetic, half-human and half-creature is portrayed by Kenula de Alwis, in a performance that would be etched in memory. Seemingly the least likely to change, he transforms from the irritable and reclusive creature to a benign and magnificent being. The parents played by Eshana Amarasighe and Deyhan Kamalgoda effectively convey the tense desperation of their circumstances and how important the parent-child bond to both parties. 

One of the catch phrases in the play is “Extraordinary!” It’s an apt description for the production, which goes on the boards on 12 February at 7:30 p.m. at the CIS Auditorium. Tickets at the reception.