Speaking truth to power – ‘Ethnics’ in ELT to the fore: the curtain falls (Part III of III)

It was an eye-opener, and an open invitation to other ethnics – indeed, the ethnic other – to similarly turn the lens of scrutiny upon themselves 

English-Language Theatre (ELT) in Sri Lanka has great potential as a tool for civil society to engage critically with the political powers that be when our elected representatives get uppity or let us and themselves down. 

It is a pity then that since 1994, when a humble arts editor (ahem) proposed a consortium of the creative and critical arms of the performing arts to this end, there have been few takers and even fewer serious contenders where ELT has dared to ‘speak truth to power’. 

Many attempts were made – from politicised staging of Shakespeare and Orwell, through slapstick masquerading as satire, to original pieces in the shape and form of existential plays, stand-up comedy and (O, Dario Fo!) even musicals.

But most fell by the wayside because they sought more to please their primary stakeholders – cast and crew, families and friends (ELT is quite tight-knit) – rather than raise the volume of citizen protest theatrically speaking, and perhaps anticipate an Aragalaya.

Society suffers if and when ELT and its ‘management and staff’ (some amateur dramatic companies are like corporations) make a splash with amusements and entertainments, and (where feasible in these straitened times) make a handful of shekels – rather than make a change to the state of the nation (there is something rotten etc.).

Sinhala theatre, to its credit, is typically far more subversive and serious about their stagecraft – and some of its doyens have paid the price in blood, as well as illiquid box offices, because ‘Colombo’ doesn’t do or go for ‘serious drama’. 

In a new year ahead, we hope for a sea-change into something rich and strange. A feeling-thinking society buffered by its artists’ fervour and fuelled by am-dram fire and brimstone. 

Today, we close the chapter on the re-run of a play that went on the boards in November 2024 and saw Feroze Kamardeen (FK) reprise his eponymous role – he’s Nana in Grow Up Nana (GUN) – in early January. NOTE... the essay here is based on the original draft of a script – plays vary in their production ‘ad libitum’ (at the performer’s pleasure). 

Smoking Gun – Part III

Nana essays a political gambit: “SLMs have a love-hate relationship with the UNP: there is no other way to describe it. It’s not like ALL Muslims vote UNP, OK? You get SLMs who vote SLFP; SLMs who vote Pohottuwa [SLPP]; SLMs – mostly in the East – who vote Muslim Congress; SLMs who are thinking of voting for Maalimaawa [JVP/NPP]? And the 70 percent who vote UNP or SaJaBey [SJB], and [the latter] will quickly come back to UNP!” 

This is funny yet true... This year will be an acid test... And if there is a community that may help the GOP to resurrect, here it is. 

“Talking of the UNP, all the ones who left and went to Sajabey – sin, no? I mean, for twenty years they were under Ranil wishing they were under Sajith. Now, they are under Sajith wishing they were under Ranil. Can’t catch a break, men; sin! Now, when they go back under Ranil, I hope they won’t start wishing they were under a Rajapaksa!” continues FK in jocular vein. 

Easy money for a comedian; but the true commentator reveals where his or her real sympathy lies... satire must punch above its weight – standup does so below the line...

Nana surmises: “The Rajapaksa family have been both the most popular and most unpopular political family in the nation’s history. They have been at the very top and have been at the very bottom too, a little bit like Sri Lanka Cricket. And just like Sri Lanka Cricket, they are still participating – but I think they have better odds than our cricket team!” 

TBH I’m still torn about making failed politicos sound funnier than they really were... that is asking a nation to forget – and forgive – their often heinous sins...

“Okay… granted, one person in the family is a great politician, whether that is a compliment or an insult, I will let you decide. That doesn’t make EVERYONE in the family a great politician. No! Even if you have a father, mother, and sister who are good politicians, that still doesn’t make you one, as Anura Bandaranaike found out – as Sajith and Namal are finding out on a daily basis. The golden rule: ‘Oba obagey piyaanan nowey’ (‘You are by no means your father’).” 

Or so FK pokes the bear. Easy laughs; uneasy wriggling in the front row is all well and good... Theatre must hold up a mirror and help the audience to lower their masks.

Nana is on a roll: “But Sajith is very different to his father. President Premadasa had grand plans: Gam Udawa, the 200 Garment Factory Project; he was a man on a mission. Ranasinghe Premadasa may have had his faults and foibles but he knew what it was like to be poor. Sajith, on the other hand, knows a lot of English words! He can drive a bus, Sajith can sing well, he can play many musical instruments, Sajith can play cricket – pity he can’t play a decent opposition leader!” 

Sorry to say that we throw the easy targets under the bus and miss the point about satire biting if it is to provoke a salutary reaction from the political black sheep being roasted in society’s interests. If it is dark horses you want to do, your ambition must be made of sterner stuff than wit and wisecracks. 

Moral compass

 “There was a time when quite a few SLMs in Colombo were actively pushing Maalimaawa as a choice. That’s how sad it is. That’s how bad our so-called main political parties are. Shame on you UNP, SLFP, Pohottuwa and Sajabey! You are so bad that Muslims – who are, if anything, the epitome of capitalism and open market; rich, Colombo Muslims – were willing to look at the socialists as a viable option! Turn up in their Mercs and Beemers and Armani belts and go, ‘sa-odaraya, api aawa.’ But that love affair is now over, thanks to Ranil Wickremesinghe.” 

This ‘machine-gun spray’ of targeted bullets from FK brings home the bacon without making a pig’s breakfast of political critique.

Nana is unstoppable: “The NPP: for a brief while they were riding a massive wave, and then RW signed the IMF agreement – petrol queue, gone; gas queue, gone; power cuts, gone; NPP chances, going, going, …” Is this a doffing of the hat to the IMF-delivering Mikado?

“And let’s face it: the IMF is an organization that is funded primarily by US, UK, France, Germany, Japan – all countries who are both ‘open market’ and ‘capitalist’. One thing about capitalists, they have time for a lot of things but not for socialists. And Sajith, what makes you think you can sign a different agreement with the IMF if (and that’s a big if) and when you come to power? The only time that will happen is if we mess this one up, like we did the previous time, and the previous fifteen times, we mess it and we have to go back. Then, I can guarantee you this agreement will feel a thousand times better. We may have had to drop our pants this time; but if there is a next time, our nation won’t have pants to drop!” 

Ouch... that has to hurt... especially a regime’s leaders who stoically maintain that we’re no longer a bankrupt nation! But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. It transpires the IMF is apolitical and will sign on the dotted line with any regime that is democratically elected.

But that’s not cricket

Nana meanwhile makes local politics more palatable by making it sound like cricket. “Fact is: let’s face it, our country’s economy today is in a far better place than it was twelve months ago. And it all happened because we sent the right batsman to the crease. … For those viewers joining us now: ‘Team Sri Lanka presidency has a new batsman at the crease; previous chap made a mess of it; they are totally behind the run rate, and the permanent non-striker – the PM – has crossed over with the roaring approval of 134 fans. Ranjith, what was your assessment of the previous batsman’s performance?’”  Let’s for the nonce overlook any debate over ‘Legality vs. Legitimacy’ then, shall we? WE didn’t send in that batsman in 2022, ‘The 225 Club’ did! 

Nana replies in the commentator’s voice: “Well, I mean one can say that the previous batsman’s biggest fault was that he forgot he was a batsman, one saw him trying to also be the bowler, then in one over he tried to field at first slip. But Russell, where he really went wrong, one can say, is when he tried to also be the umpire, scorer, third umpire and match referee!” 

The past is prologue. But is it smart to be wise after the event? True sagacity from satirists comes from – however subtly they may do it – provoking thought, proposing solutions.

“Yes Ranjith, no wonder the crowd forced him off the crease. Compared to that chap, any other batsman would now feel like Don Bradman!” Nana concludes.

To the master-bat who now heads the state, FK says: “I have a small message on behalf of not just my community but all of our people, Your Excellency: a nation is not just an economy. A nation is a people – who have the freedom to live, speak, think and practise; a people who have freedom from hunger, thirst and oppression. THAT is a nation. Without that, it is only a corporation. And Sri Lanka is not a corporation. We are a nation.”

The international bargain-hunters who benefit from any nation’s bankruptcy driven by kleptocratic bungling – and some essay, wilful blindness spurred by profit motives – may beg to disagree?

Continuing in political vein but bringing it back to the domestic economy, FK fires a warning shot across the bows of the ship of state: “SLMs joined the Aragalaya with a lot of gusto. I am talking about the real, peaceful, citizens’ protest. That one time we all united as citizens, exercised our constitutional right to peaceful protest, THAT Aragalaya. And if anything, the peaceful Aragalaya taught a valuable lesson to all future governments of this nation. Anybody can protest against you: that’s fine. We are a democracy, or at least aspiring to be one: getting out on the streets, braving the sun and rain, carrying placards – that’s a sign of a healthy democracy. But if ever the middle-class Muslim women of Colombo are on the streets, call out the National Guard – that’s ‘DEFCON 5’ [the US state of alert or readiness level for ‘peacetime normal’] for you, that’s your ‘dead canary’!” 

Although I suspect Nana meant ‘DEFCON 1’ – the highest level of readiness: for nuclear war!

Pain & poignancy

Funny as these issues are made out to be, there is real pain in this poignant one-man-show. As Nana has it: “But vote for them or not, we SLMs can never forget – and we pray that we get the strength to someday forgive – the ‘Pohottuwa’ for forcing cremations on the Muslim community. … Our funerals are regimented, specified, we have no option – because our faith gives us none. Please understand that burial is specified – there is NO OPTION of cremation for us. Pork is not an option for us, neither is cremation. I know ‘you guys’ (Nana means the ethnic ‘Other’) might find that hard to process or understand since it is a common practice – and that’s fine. But please understand that for Muslims it’s not ‘fine’ – it never was and never will be. And if you are looking for a monumental historical mistake that would be it.” 

Takes courage to say that in public, so take a bow together with it Nana… I mean, FK.

Also, equally courageous, was this stand on divorce under Muslim law: “Another common misconception ‘you guys’ (code: the Other) have is around Islamic divorce. Some of you guys have been through divorce; it can get painful, draining. ‘Easy for the Muslims: talak, talak, talak, and done.’ Well, it’s not that simple. What you guys, and maybe more Muslims than we think, are unaware that there has to be an interval between those words. And the interval is specified: three menstrual cycles. A total of six menstrual cycles between first and last. And since the children are carrying the father’s name, yes, it is the father’s responsibility to provide for them. With divorce rates rising in my community, men who gladly use the ‘talaks’ completely forget the duties and responsibilities obligatory on them. I think it’s time that everyone stopped pussyfooting around this issue and made the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act [MMDA] not more favourable, but more equal, to our women. It’s time. And shame on all our so-called leaders, that I had to drag myself out of my self-imposed retirement to come here and say this, it shows that all of you have failed, you have failed your sisters, you have failed your daughters, you have failed.” 

Hats – and gloves – off, Nana!

Mirror, mirror

Nana AKA FK amidst all this hilarious finger-pointing is able to turn the spotlight of scrutiny on self… “You have to understand something about us thespians. If you say, ‘You were good’, we hear ‘You were amazing, your performance was incredible!’”

You were good, FK. Hear this: not amazing except the creativity and energy levels required to sustain two hours of rapid patter single-handedly. Not incredible; but that it has taken so long for an ‘ethnic’ – a person who is a member of an ethnic group – to present, parody and perhaps salvage the reputation of the same group by speaking truth to its power centres.

It was an eye-opener, and an open invitation to other ethnics – indeed, the ethnic other – to similarly turn the lens of scrutiny upon themselves. If we cannot laugh at ourselves, we will not be able to bring healing to our wounded society. 

Now FFS, rather than retiring prematurely in a foreshadowing of that great equalizer – an SLM funeral – please milk more of our thrice-blessed and once-bountiful island home’s sacred cows... some of us have become a tad bit more uppity than is tolerable, and could do with a good takedown.

Part I and II of this series can be found at https://www.ft.lk/columns/Speaking-truth-to-power-Ethnics-in-ELT-to-the-fore-Part-I-of-III/4-757332 and https://www.ft.lk/columns/Speaking-truth-to-power-Ethnics-in-ELT-to-the-fore-Part-II-of-III/4-757541

| Editor-at-large of LMD | ELT critic and aficionado since 1994 |