Who is satire, what is she? Why do all Pusswedilla lovers praise it?

Saturday, 1 November 2014 00:45 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

You don’t have to understand politics to enjoy Pusswedilla. But it helps to know what the talk of the town is. That resolutions on or against Sri Lanka were and will be passed. That a fast buck is being made by people in high places or by people with friends in high places. That political favours are and have always been family business. And that the buck doesn’t always stop where the buck was once said to stop. But you do have to accept that for all its hilarity and histrionics, Pusswedilla is NOT satire. And therein lies a peculiar or particular understanding of how our own brand of politics makes the world go round. Chaminda Pusswedilla is probably everyman’s idea of a cardboard politico. He is too clever by half. He is too sharp for the sharpest of his political opponents. The man styles himself the ‘Friend of the People, the Son of the Village, Father of Democracy, Brother of Freedom, Cosin of Human Rights and Close Relashen of Meediya Freedom.’ He bears an uncanny resemblance in mores and manners to the man or the men of the moment who strut and fret their petty hour upon our national political stage. And the fact that Dominic Kellar <who plays him> inhabits the vestments of absolute power with such familiar charm and identifiable ease and not uncommon ooze is neither here nor there. What is of import is that he strikes a chord with audiences of all ages. And therein lies a measure of the success of this political plaything of three profitable hours. Thank You For Voting Part 5 The Antire Solooshen Summit Written and Directed by Feroze Kamardeen Presented by StageLight&Magic/StageFright&PanicInc At The Lionel Wendt Theatre From 16–28 October 2014 7.30 p.m. daily

Now there is little if any doubt that ambitious thespian Ferozeshah Kamardeen has written and directed a very witty and rather wicked play. But is it SATIRE? True it has all the pop and snap and crackle of a political parody or lampoon or caricature. But IS IT satire? Every mannerism of the minions and mannequins puts audiences in mind of the feeble fellows who prop up or think they prop up the powers that be. Every joke is barbed and reduces aghast but delighted audiences to mounds of trembling jelly at the sheer audacity of attempting such a full-frontal attack on the political culture and establishment. Every nuance of all that is evil and ugly under the sun is nicely captured and presented in a camouflaged package which invites the public to laugh at the politicos whom we all love to hate without quite realising we are laughing at ourselves and our infinite capacity to be duped and to take it lying down. BUT is it satire?

What IS satire? Who IS she? That all her lovers recommend her SO highly? And that all these pointed playwrights and petty tyrants aspire to her mantle if not her girdle? That wily observer of human nature, Ambrose Bierce, had a daft and deft definition of it. In his The Devil’s Dictionary, the compiler put it down thus: SATIRE, n. An obsolete kind of literary composition in which the vices and follies of the author’s enemies were expounded with imperfect tenderness. In this country [the US], satire never had more than a sickly and uncertain existence, for the soul of it is wit, wherein we are dolefully deficient, the humour that we mistake for it, like all humour, being tolerant and sympathetic. Pusswedilla appears to qualify – at the outset. It is a literary composition, all right, with all the elements of a master craftsman’s hand at work being evident – though the effect is hardly “obsolete” or obsolescent. The “vices” and “follies” or “the author’s enemies” – indeed, the “national enemies” or “enemies of the people” – are, in fact, “expounded” with “imperfect tenderness”. But while “the soul of it” is demonstrably “wit”, “the humour that we mistake for it” is uncharacteristically “tolerant” and “sympathetic”.

Satire must be made of sterner stuff than Pusswedilla was made of. Like Pusswedilla, satire must tickle. Like Pusswedilla did, satire must bite. Like Pusswedilla didn’t, satire must terrify. Like Pusswedilla won’t and can’t, satire must – above all else – transform. Pusswedilla amused, amazed, aggrandised the common person’s perception of politics to the height of absurdity. Audiences on night after night came in expecting to be entertained and excited, but exited from the auditorium with exactly the same worldview with which they had come in. They laughed and cried tears of joy and painful mirth. BUT left being the same intrinsic citizens of a fallen republic they had been when they entered the three-ring circus. Pusswedilla tried to and succeeded in titillating the tittering classes. BUT IS IT SATIRE? One must confess with a sigh of disappointment that it was resoundingly NOT satire or anything like a sophisticated reflection of the state of the nation! Maybe chiefly because the persons or personages most in need of satirising <given the odious state of the imaginary nation we and they all inhabit> did not come in for the playwright’s witty whip- and tongue-lashing. Thankfully <however> the success <or not> of a production does NOT depend on the presentation meeting the expectations of its critics, detractors, and definers. The average theatregoer was satisfied and the common or garden politico would have nothing to grouse about – if only they could distinguish a bouquet from a brickbat. The only significant achievement of Pusswedilla was that it occupied a space that is currently vacant in the national English-speaking, Western-thinking mindset of Colombo’s theatre set. That alone makes it unique and defendable. That is its meaning and its end.

To that end, we must champion the continuation and the continuity of Pusswedilla. To that end, we must commend its writers and actors and directors and crew and sponsors/supporters. We may quibble a bit about some aspects of the play being over the top (the depiction of African diplomats as being somewhat simian) or other aspects of it going too far (the remedy for rape being ‘break it and you buy it’). But “boys will be boys will be boys”. Won’t they? That’s the national or national political motto. Isn’t it? And if the players that Pusswedilla sets out to caricature or parody or lampoon are allowed to do it with impunity, why not the Pusswedilla playwright and players themselves? After all, the play’s the thing by which wily practitioners of a peculiar or particular form of republicanism might hope to catch the conscience of the king. Don’t you think? If that happens, if it ever does, D’Smythe will be the first to say that it – all of it: Pasan Ranaweera’s manic and meaningless jibber-jabber; the bit players’ zany shenanigans and song-and-dance routines; Robert Western-thinking’s very “Eastern-unthinkingness” – would have been worth it for Pusswedilla NOT to have been *satire*. Remember, O republicans, the name of the game is transformation; NOT titillation.

Pix by Anush De Costa