Theatre, politics and a ‘cult of personality’

Let the curtain fall on this unsavoury topic with a last look at one facet that the two stages of theatrics share to the detriment of the national interest 

Over the years, we have noted old Ceylon go down the drain from being a proudly independent Commonwealth Dominion (1948) with a first-class civil service, and an aspiring arts and culture scene, to becoming and being as unpalatable as a banana republic. 

For too long now, in the absence of civil society checks and balances to nurture good governance, and with bread and circuses under-nourishing the island’s civic life and dramatic diets alike, there has been a decline and fall in the body politic. 

Where once the crème of the crop in governance, as well as the toast of the town in dramaturgy, did an emerging nation proud – which Sri Lanka as a freshly minted republic (1972) had the potential to be – it was not to be sustainable in either arena of performance, whether politics or theatre. 

It has been a case study and a cautionary tale in terms of descending from the sublime to the ridiculous. From the bright sunlit uplands of being showcased as a model colony setting a gold standard in new nation hood in the 1950s and early 1960s, to failed state less than a few decades later. 

In the state: through being buried by an electoral avalanche of undesirables riding on a rigged system – from democratic republicanism to rabid demagoguery – that elevated to high national office bigots, ultra-nationalists and corrupt cabals lining their pockets with war profits. 

On the English-language theatre (ELT) stage: from classical theatre to slapstick, comedy masquerading as satire and masterpieces misinterpreted by impresarios more mindful of the box office than any role theatre could play on the national stage.  

The best of the board in terms of both statesmanship and stagecraft even today strongly suggest that there is indeed “something rotten in the state” of theatre as much as politics.

The past is prologue

Shall we, like Puck, seek to “restore amends” by reiterating the key points made by two recent pieces on the uncanny comparisons between the state of politics today, and the condition of theatre these days and for some time – too long – now?

https://www.ft.lk/columns/Theatre-or-politics-Caesar-s-ambition-must-be-made-of-far-more-sterner-stuff/4-753989

https://www.ft.lk/columns/Theatre-and-politics-TOP-and-POT-rot/4-754249 

Or better still, let the curtain fall on this unsavoury topic with a last look at one facet that the two stages of theatrics share, to the detriment of the national interest? 

To wit, that politics – like theatre – tends to lionize the worst or most lacklustre of its representatives.

Two cultures run a comparable ethos each

In the sphere of politics, this is evident to anyone with a modicum of decency, self-respect and a sense of proportion.

We run after our politicos shamelessly to garner favours or concessions. 

Kow-tow to them in public and in private to gain an often unfair upper hand in business or society, shoving aside or trampling our peers underfoot in a zero-sum game where winners – usually the sociopolitical and economic elites – take it all. 

And we invite them to ‘grace’ our functions (like tone-deaf political animals) when it is apparent to all but their doting mothers or dotard lovers that they are a national ‘disgrace’.

Why else would we allow them to still swan around in convoys and lurk or smirk disingenuously behind beefed-up musclemen, when the war is over and the only threat to national security is the dangerous insecurity of egomaniacs?

On the stages of ELT (and, dare I say, to a lesser extent perhaps, in the more critically engaged national languages theatre circles) we deify actors, artistes, directors, producers, and even lesser mortals such as chief choreographers, head of the house, and cast favourites or crew icons.  Try criticising the venerable paterfamiliases of ELT in print or person – and the barrage of invective and contumely that is heaped like burning coals on yon critics’ heads would soon convince you that sacred cows are not by any means to be prodded. 

The same truth holds for decrepit senior politicians of both – I am tempted to say ‘many’ or ‘all’ – genders who parade their lack of vision, mission, passion as ‘political maturity’ or even (God help us) ‘statesmanship’. 

What’s in a name?

Many of these whitened sepulchres run the moral gamut from ‘good’ (in the past), through ‘bad’ (in their midlife crises and our national psychotic breakdowns as a house divided against itself amply testifies), to ‘ugly’ (the raft of evils they’ve got away with over the years).m Yet, we name people, places and things after them... 

Such nouns may well have unrepeatable adjectives! 

Not that striking off from Hansard the more colourful utterances of these political train-wrecks goes anywhere near redeeming the name of the parties they represent or restoring the people’s faith in the once august assembly that’s more like a bar-room brawl on its better days... the dressing-rooms of third-rate theatricals exhibit brighter cleaner behaviour in their worst excesses. 

Would you name a road, stadium, vegetable market or even a plebeian pavilion in the backwoods of say, the Southern Province, after a thief, rapist or murderer? 

Or invite a gun-runner or drug smuggler to join the board or declare open your daughter’s wedding dinner banquet? 

Then why stoop to conquer such disreputable laurels?

Stand and fail to deliver 

Remaining seated during a staged standing ovation for mediocre productions that have won hearts and minds no farther afield than family, friends and an undying fandom is the closest the theatre of protest has come to the glorious battles of the erstwhile Aragalaya!

Remaining silent while a fellowship of felons manufactures consent against a grudgingly compliant – or do I mean complacent? – polity while the villains feather their nests and garland each other with laurels at the expense of state coffers is the electoral equivalent of ‘please remain in your seats for the duration of the performance’. 

Exeunt omnes – pursued by a bear… while political and theatrical animals, minerals and vegetables appear to be “very like a whale” – fat, fit for blubber, and taking up far more space than is conscionable in an ecosphere where slimmer, smarter and savvier are the needs of the hour.

Expect an utterly uncivilised uprising against the conspiracy of the old political culture in the emperor’s new clothes to stone the players – actors and masquerades alike on both stages – as they exit the auditorium or august assembly. 

The Hun is at the Gate – if only the gatekeepers of our commonwealth had eyes to see.

(Editor-at-large of LMD | ‘A play is the thing to capture the conscience of the king’)