Thevananth Thevanayagam, jack-of-all-trades in theatre

Thevananth Thevanayagam (46) is the Founder and Director of the Active Theatre Movement, a fast-growing and popular theatre troupe in the Northern Province. He and fellow theatre lovers in the north have worked hard over the years to re-popularise drama and theatre among the local populace. Following are excerpts from an interview: 

Q: Tell us of your own history with theatre? Were you involved in it from your schooldays?

A: No, I was a very shy, retiring schoolboy. In the eighth grade I was called on to recite a piece of poetry in front of my class, and broke down halfway through it. I couldn’t manage something even that simple. I therefore never attempted anything close to getting on a stage during my schooldays.

Q: How then did you eventually find your way into drama and theatre?

A:  It was while I was at technical college after my A’Levels. Some troupe advertised for youth to join; I volunteered and became hooked. I hadn’t done well enough in my first A’Level attempt (math stream) to get into University. After getting involved with the theatre troupe, I re-sat for the Art stream the second time and qualified to read Drama and Theatre at Jaffna University.

Q: Describe your experience at the University?

A: We got into trouble even before we began. I belonged to the anti-raggers in Uni; we did not believe in kowtowing to the senior students’ unreasonable demands during ragging. They laid down several rules for us freshers. We had to wear only bata slippers; we had to wear vesti and not pants; we could not come to university in our cycles. 

We flouted all those rules. When they prevented us from bringing our cycles into the university, we went by bullock cart instead. One day we dressed up a fellow student anti-ragger as an elderly bullock cart driver. The make-up was so good no one recognised him. The rest of us sat in the cart, drove it all the way into the university, and parked it outside the Kailasapthy Auditorium. 

Leaving the driver behind to guard the cart, we walked over and sipped some tea by the canteen to watch events unfold. We called this invisible theatre – where the audience would have no idea that a theatre was being enacted in their midst, but would participate in it anyway. 

Soon an outraged congregation of senior students swamped the cart and demanded of the driver to know who had brought it in. Unfortunately in the midst of this, it began to rain and the driver’s make-up dissolved. The seniors became even more furious when they recognised him and attacked and dismantled the cart.

We subsequently filed a case stating that we had every right to bring the cart into the premises (the university rules stipulated that students could ride in on any vehicle) and demanded our bullock cart be returned intact.

The university had to close down for a month over this issue. The local papers, especially the Uthayan, gave us a lot of positive publicity for fighting the menace of ragging. This was back in 1992 when it had still not been outlawed. 

Meanwhile, within the University the other students were following a policy of ostracising us as anti-raggers. Even some of the lecturers were not sympathetic. At the official inquiry, we were told that we had acted in a manner to antagonise the other students and thus the incident was mostly our fault. We however held firm to our conviction as to our rights to travel to the university in any vehicle available to us, as the rules stipulated. 

Q: Did the issue settle down over your subsequent years at the University?

A: Well, we continued to be ostracised throughout our four years there. I think it was drama and theatre that gave us the strength to stand up to the bullies. We could not have achieved what we did with simple dialogue and talking – but we got the message out to them through theatre. They inflicted tremendous mental torture upon us – yet we were able to hold to our convictions and relay it to them as well.

Q: Did they attend your theatre performances?

A: Yes, they did. They could not keep away. They would not invite us to their own cultural events and tried to hoot and jeer us away if we attended, but we always elbowed our way in and ignored their taunts to prove to them that they could not take our right away to participate in those spaces. 

When we staged our own productions however, they were not able to keep away. Many attended and sometimes, some of our performances would be so packed that people would stand in the aisles when the seats on either side ran out.

Q: Who do you count as your mentors in drama and theatre?

A:Many, but two of my main mentors are Kulanthai Shanmugalingam, the veteran Jaffna playwright and Dr. K. Shidamabaranathan, a senior lecturer in theatre at the University of Jaffna.

I have worked under both from 1991 -2001 so I have been mainly influenced by their approaches. Shanmugalingam is known for the social realism portrayed in his plays. Shidambaranathan is known for his ability to reach out to the audiences and get them to interact. I have been told that I have fused these two approaches to innovate an approach of my own; one combining social realism and audience interactivity. 

Q: Who writes the scripts for your plays?

A: I do. I write and direct all our productions myself. Around here, we have to be a jack-of-all-trades. We can’t afford to specialise in only thing or another. I do wish though we had more musically talented people to compose music in our team as not everyone can do that – but apart from that everyone knows everything from staging the productions to fine-tuning the stage light and sound. 

Q: You mentioned that you had received criticisms of washing dirty linen in public, over your portrayal of social realism?

A: Yes, that goes with the territory. My position has always been that I am not naming any names. I am not accusing anybody. I am just portraying reality as I see them. If that reality is making you uncomfortable, then do something about it. 

Over the years though, I have learnt to be oblique in what I wish to portray as circumstances are not conducive to being open in what we want to say. We have been criticised for this as akin to fellows sipping from vessels seemingly innocently under the palmyrah tree. “Can’t tell if those fellows are sipping milk or toddy,” it has been said. Well make of us what you will. We are not about to go away.

Q: No, you are clearly here to stay. Explain to us some of your strategies to popularise theatre in Jaffna?

A: Well, we are holding these yearly theatre festivals in Nallur for one. We also try to engage with children as much as possible and draw them in. That’s the strategy to get the next generation bitten with the bug, so that they can carry the torch forward. Every year, we put on children’s plays and engage with them interactively via those plays. Last year, only adults acted in the play – then some parents came forward to ask if we could teach their children to act as well. Those children were the ones who staged the ‘Endeavouring Mr. Rabbit’ play this year. And so we keep growing. 

We also try to train at least one troupe per year in the other districts. Thus over the last year, we worked with the Mullaitivu troupe. They all had day jobs but committed to learning with us at nights to put on their play depicting what they went through during the 2006-2009 war. When I became disheartened by the criticisms we received at the previews, they were the ones committed enough to demand to see it through all the way up to final production. They have been very brave. Among them are severely war traumatised people who had been referred to our workshops to overcome their trauma. They have a story to tell and they want the world to know about it. Others shouldn’t try to suppress it.

Q: Have you considered staging these plays beyond the Northern Province?

A: We have considered taking it to Colombo. Perhaps we’ll stage at least some of these plays there. Let us see. We face issues of funding as well as lack of linkages in Colombo to help us with organising the event over there, but we are certainly thinking of it.

Q: What about abroad? We have a diaspora stretched all over the globe who might appreciate these plays too. 

A: Again, we lack the necessary linkages and funding necessary to travel like that. We had not even considered going abroad so far with our plays, but it is certainly something to think about. In Jaffna right now, people are only slowly getting used to attending theatre events, much less having to pay for them. Perhaps in Colombo and abroad, we can have ticketed events. It’s something to consider. 

(TM)