{"id":230158,"date":"2022-12-01T09:12:26","date_gmt":"2022-12-01T03:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=230158"},"modified":"2022-12-07T06:06:52","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T00:36:52","slug":"a-review-the-jungle-and-the-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/a-review-the-jungle-and-the-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"A Review: The Jungle And The Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ana Pararajasingham<\/a> –<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Ana Pararajasingham<\/p><\/div>\n

The Jungle and the Sea <\/a><\/span><\/i>has been <\/i>playing to packed houses since its opening at the Belvoir Theatre in Sydney in November 2022.\u00a0It is a worthy sequel to the multi-award-winning \u201cCounting and Cracking<\/i>\u201d. The powerful play revolves around a Tamil family forced to separate and live in two countries: war-torn Sri Lanka and Australia.<\/p>\n

Following the deliberate bombing of St Peter\u2019s Church in the North by the Sri Lankan air force during which civilians are killed, the family separates. The father (Siva), blinded in the bombing and a daughter (Lakshmi) leave for Australia; the mother (Gowri) stays behind with two other daughters (Abi and Madhu); the son (Ahilan), joins the liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Tigers for short.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>{ Siva appears to believe that the conflict should be resolved non-violently is a\u00a0 <\/span>Christian Tamil. could this be an oblique reference to\u00a0 <\/span>S J V Chelvanyakam, ,a Christian,\u00a0 <\/span>who led the Tamils for thirty years\u00a0 <\/span>unsuccessfully to resolve the conflict non-violently ?}<\/i><\/p>\n

The play produced by S Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack is a powerful depiction of the travails of a Tamil family displaced, dispossessed and driven out.<\/p>\n

This Tamil family is upper middle class, westernized and anglicized, conscious of its Tamil identity but not quite tuned to the nationalistic narrative of the masses. It is a family with connections to senior Sihala Sri Lankan government officials and the means to find sanctuary in a foreign land apparently with ease.<\/p>\n

The revolving stage on which the play is acted out serves to accentuate the constant movement that multiple displacements entail. It adds extra dynamism to the play as characters travel in time and space.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Gowri and her daughters are among the hundreds of thousands of Tamils displaced from the Jaffna Peninsula when it is occupied by the Sri Lankan army in 1995. The story then moves to\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>2009, with the family now in the \u2018Vanni\u2019 (the Northern mainland) amidst killings and bombing of civilians.<\/p>\n

It then shifts to Sydney around the same time where the Tamil diaspora is out on the streets drawing attention to the massacres underway in Sri Lanka. In alerting her blind father to the noise emanating from the protest Lakshmi rather incongruously identifies it as protests by \u2018Sri Lankans\u2019. This is followed later on by her confession that she had contributed money to the Tigers. The dilemma of the Sri Lankan Tamil upper middle class to be \u2018Sri Lankan\u201d or \u201cTamil\u201d, could not have been better captured.<\/p>\n

The play draws from Eastern and Western classics.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In Mahabharata<\/i>, Princess Gandhari, blindfolds herself on realizing that her husband, Dhritarashtra is blind demonstrating her faithfulness and love. Similarly, Gowri, following Siva\u2019s blinding in the bombing of the church blindfolds herself promising that she would remove it only when the family is reunited. During their multiple displacements as the war rages on, Abi describes to her \u2018blind\u2019 mother the happenings-bodies piled up, upturned vehicles and properties ablaze. Abi\u2019s vivid descriptions bring to life scenes confronted by the Tamils caught up in the final months of the war.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the Greek tragedy, Antigone <\/i>disobeys Creon by insisting on burying Polyneices, her dead brother. This play reaches its climax when Abi attempts to conduct the final rites for her dead brother in defiance of Sri Lankan government\u2019s orders.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

{In depicting the violence by the oppressed and the oppressor, the former\u2019s violence though limited is up close, whereas the latter\u2019s violence on a much larger scale is impersonal -air raids, bombing and targeted strafing of the civilian population from a distance. This can result in a perception of being caught between two adversaries. While this may not be how it was perceived by the masses, it reflects the view of the privileged Tamil upper middle class. After all, was it not this particular class that was threatened by the actions of the Tigers to empower marginalized segments of the Tamil community? }<\/i><\/p>\n

The government\u2019s orders are implemented by, Kishan, a Sinhala friend of the Tamil family and more significantly, the father of Abi\u2019s husband, Himal.\u00a0 <\/span>The orders are to prevent any commemoration of the dead Tigers. The government line is that such commemorations could well cause the Tamil liberation movement to be revived.\u00a0 <\/span>Order needs to be re-established argues the father. Himal, liberal and open-hearted disagrees, \u201cOrder, just violence done neatly\u201d, he rebukes his father and calls for the truth about the massacres to be acknowledged before any reconciliation. \u201cThere are so many truths\u201d, responds the father.<\/p>\n

This play is about one of the many truths about the war that had torn Sri Lanka apart. The play makes the powerful point that truth can liberate and reconcile when acknowledged.\u00a0 <\/span>In its absence, the peace that ensues is just a \u2018Victor\u2019s Peace\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Carnatic music by Indu Balachandran and Arjunan Puvendran, vocals accompanied by veena<\/i> and mirathanga<\/i>m adds to the profound loss experienced by the displaced Tamils. Towards the end of the play Gowri\u00a0 <\/span>dances sorrowfully. Her pain is revealed in every movement. The gestures and facial expressions convey emotion <\/i>and mood are expressed in the tradition of Bharatanatyam, an Indian classical dance. This is not surprising as \u00a0 <\/span>Gowri is played by Anandavalli, a renowned exponent of this dance.<\/p>\n

The other actors. Prakash Belawadi (Siva) Kalieswary Srinivasan (Abi), Rajan Velu (Himal), Jacob Rajan (Kishan) , Emma Harvie (Lakshmi), Nadie Kammallaweera (Madhu) and Biman Wimalaratne (Ahilan) performed skilfully in demanding roles.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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