My take on Venice and Theatre in Colombo

Just like a parent would "sweeten" bitter medicine given to a child, Feroze Kamardeen and SLM have mixed Pop Culture with Shakespeare to make it more sellable to the masses of Sri Lanka. Okay that wasn't a good start. I'm sure I pissed off many Shakespeare fans by comparing the Bard's work to "bitter medicine". This is not my thinking. I swear by the Complete Works of Shakespeare, I posses.

The production of Venice was a severely commercialized one, and made to appeal to the masses as opposed to a few in the theatrical arena in Colombo. If there be a person who doesn't agree with that, well "may the wrath of the bard, be with you!". Those hard core Theatre lovers especially the lovers of the bard's work would have had the shock of their lives. So it's understandable the critical reviews the play has been getting. This is however in contrast to the reviews on the main stream media.

So.. "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Feroze, not to praise him". Although it may seem like I'm praising the dude during the rest of this post, I'm actually trying to strike a balance (Star Wars style). So I know I'm going to put my reputation (yes I to have some sort of a ding bat one at that) on line for the rest of the post and there'll be a mob gathering to hang me in public (at the crossroads of Kottu), but I do ask you to bare with me, till you come to the end.

No, this wasn't a Modernization of Shakespeare. That would be same theatre companies adaptation of Julius Caesar done in Military Fashion with a Live Newscaster and Projectetion Screens. I kinda liked it. ‘Venice’ was more like what Bathiya & Santhush do to Sinhala music in the country. Not that it's bad (I like them too.. ok now hit me on the head publicly admitting that), it manages to capture a larger audience who normally would think it's boring and wouldn't get half of what is communicated.

It's a debate about portraying/communicating 10% of the play to 90% of the audience or 90% of the play to 10% of the audience. One would argue that a single production of the Bard could be done at all these level's making it appealing for all categories of audience's, infact I like to think the production by us (Royal Production of M.O.V. in 96 or 97) managed to achieve some of this. However we must acknowledge the fact that times have changed and it's not an easy task, with the "teen's" of today being influenced by "Jay-Z", "Eminem" and what not, spending most of their time on Xbox's and PS-2's (is the PS-3 out?) , the last thing they're (atleast most of them.. there will always be exceptions) going to find cool is Shakespeare.

Productions in Colombo have become a "Social Event" where people want to be seen, specially the youngsters, and once they don’t understand what's going on onstage (not that they really pay attention to it, they expect it to get up and hit you in the face), they become restless and bring the house down. Inter School Drama Comp (by the I.C.R.C.) and the Shakespeare Drama Comp (by the Y.M.C.A) are perfect examples. The talent (onstage I mean) at these plays are over shadowed by the loud/restless balcony (comprising ofcourse of the very people I was talking about). A show at the "Wendt" is more of a chance to show off your modified car, your new hair do or the new top (revealing being an understatement) you bought, than enjoy a production and be dragged into the world that the Director portrayed. Let's face it!

Yes I know, you are dying to bring out "Checkpoint" and how it's the perfect exception to the above argument. Hmm.. I don’t know but atleast the audience seemed more mature than what I saw at "Venice". Yes I chose "mature" since I realized that you actually cant use "age" as the metric to understand theatre, as discussed above (forgive me I too make errors you know). I think it's more to do with the audience you cater to, and target in your productions.

So in the end, there would have been more people (who don't dig Shakespeare) in the audience that understood what M.O.V was about, all though it lacked the depth the bard would have liked to be portrayed through his lines and replaced them with songs that people (above mentioned) connect with. In the end it's a compromise between people walking off not understanding the play and what was being said, and people walking out (shaking their heads in disgust) saying "this is not Shakespeare". Again you may point that both these segments of the audience may be captured in one production, and the Director in this instance took the more lucrative and easy way out. To that I bow my head humble silence.

Anyways what ever camp you fall into, there were big "No no's" committed in the play (in my opinion ofcourse). Here's my list.

Clip on Mic's.

Takes away from a Theatrical experience. The need to project and connect with the audience is gone. One would argue that the actors’ voices needed to be preserved because of the long drawn out performance schedule and the singing. The cast was doubled/alternated this shouldn't have been a problem. The singing should be done by, a chorus (to be discussed later). The use of pick up mic's are understandable but still, the Wendt is a perfectly audible stage. One of the first things we get our chaps to do is Projection Training at the Navarangahala.

Live Singing

I first saw this incorparated in "Noices Off" by the same theatre company (I'm talking about live band, and the whole works, not an unaccompanied soloist). This requires people who can sing. Mind you it's a load of pressure on a lead portraying a role but to add a live performance is a little too much even to a brilliant actor or a brilliant singer, unless your both. If you really want to have live performances use a chorus (that can sing of course) so that the burden is on them. The lead can do a Milli-Vanilli if they really want.

Basics in Theatre
Some of the basics in Theatre were ignored, mostly due to the clip on mic's, where the actors made very little effort to make proper eye contact with the audience and deliver to them. Often were found delivering their lines with their back to the audience. Also the lead actors were upstaged a few times during crowd scenes, where there was too much of movement.

Lighting

It's fancy to use Moving Heads and all that, but they failed to focus on the faces of the actors or the actors didn’t walk up to the light. Hence most of the facial expressions were lost (if they had any). Only during a solo (not soliloquy, but a solo or duet) was a Follow spot used.

Character Build Up

There was no character build up as such. Each was played in the same level. Shylock (played by Marsh) and Gratiano (played by Zaiqi) were the two roles who stuck with me, although the others kept coming and going.

Other things on my head :

Stage - Backdrops and Platforms

I must say the backdrops were beautiful. The stage consisted of platforms forming different levels. The highlight being two platforms on rails, with the ability to move forward and backward. Brings me memories of our production of the M.O.V. where we used Steps and Platforms on wheels. I remember the audience being amazed. (Well actually most of them didn't know they were on wheels, there were amazed that after a quick ‘black out’ those bulky steps weren't where they used to be.) Enough of that, my point was that a good 10 years from that production couldn't the Production Managers come up with something better than a stagnent set of platofrms that moved forward and back?

Costumes

Looked amazing, and in period (according to my knowledge). You'd expect nothing better than that from Sonali White - Haddai.

There you are. I hope this managed to bring some balance to the force, rather than seem like I'm praising the dude for his efforts. Maybe we'll call it a "Pop-corn play" (I'd give 4 pop-corns out of 5) so that there's a clearer distinction from the others (other plays performed in Colombo) that the critics will be satisfied with.

On a side note : I came to the realization (at the end of this post, during spell check, I had to, soo many Theartre buff's will be reading this, who are already pissed with me :) ) that I keep messing up the spelling of Mr. Shakespeare. The fact that, there being numerous ways to go about it, being beside the point. : )

Pics have been taken from their photoshoot available on the SLM site.