RESPLENDENT ISLAND
Sri Lanka is the epitome of a tropical paradise with golden sand beaches and luxurious palm trees, regal elephants and sexy leopards, the Pearl of the Indian Ocean once known as Ceylon. Its history goes back to at least 125,000 years, before the Europeans came knocking and mayhem started, but very few of us are familiar with its culture. The compelling theatrical epic Counting and Cracking not only fills that void, but does so as a not-to-be-missed monumental experience.
Ahilan Karunaharan, Kaivalya Suvarna, Abbie-lee Lewis, Shiv Palekar,
Nadie Kammallaweera & Gandhi MacIntyre
Nadie Kammallaweera
With a cast of sixteen actors from six countries, Counting and Cracking — the Public Theater‘s North American Premiere which opened last night at NYU Skirball — is the multi-generational and multilingual story of a Sri Lankan family of Tamil origin that immigrated to Australia. Making sure we follow the plot and laugh at all the jokes, playwright and associate director S. Shakthidharan and director and associate playwright Eamon Flack keep us focused on the zippy ensemble, constantly in motion, while they feed us pieces of history, philosophy, and anthropology.
Nadie Kammallaweera and Shiv Palekar
Janakan Suthanthiraraj, Venkhatesh Sritharan & Kranthi Kiran Mudigonda
It begins in 2004 at the Sydney Harbour where straightforward Radha (Nadie Kammallaweera) — a gifted mathematician, mother, and widow — is forcing her 21-year old son Siddhartha (Shiv Palekar) to be part of a Hindu ritual. He has to scatter his grandmother’s ashes into the ocean but it is a complicated affair directed by a Hindu Priest (a hilarious Gandhi MacIntyre) who only speaks Tamil and Sanskrit. Siddhartha, “Sid”, is a true Australian, born in Sydney, and has no idea of what is happening, resulting in a very playful opening.
Ahilan Karunaharan
Shiv Palekar & Abbie-lee Lewis
Sid’s girlfriend Lily (Abbie-lee Lewis) — who comes from the Yolngu People, an aggregation of Aboriginal Australian clans — knows a lot more about her ethnicity than he does and she gently pushes him to find out about his history. It is only the beginning of the play and we are already dealing with the horror of colonization and its never-ending brutal consequences. Sid’s neighbor, a Turkish-Australian air-conditioner installer named Ismet (Rodney Afif) likes Radha even as she bosses him around and gives him the cold shoulder, adding another comical side to this multicultural saga.
Shiv Palekar & Abbie-lee Lewis
A phone call changes everything; Radha’s husband, Sid’s father, is alive! He was secretly detained for 21 years by the Government and it is unexpected, almost unwelcome, news for her because it triggers all she has being trying to forget for 20 years. We move to 1957 in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, at the home of the Minister of Trade, Manickavasagar, called “Appah” (dad in Tamil) by everybody. He is the patriarch of Radha’s family and her beloved grandfather, played with elegance and passion by Prakash Belawadi. He and his wife Aacha (a feisty Sukania Venugopal) are elated about the birth of their granddaughter Radha.
Kaivalya Suvarna, Abbie-lee Lewis, Rajan Velu, Nipuni Sharada, Prakash Belawadi
In order to explain Sri Lankan modern history without being pedantic, Shakthidharan and Flack see to it that each character represents a part of it, like masks in an ancient play. Bala (Rajan Velu), the poor farmer who sells fruit to Radha’s family, is a hopeful Tamil while Nihinsa (Nipuni Sharada), one of the maids, is Sinhalese, lamenting that, for her people, it is almost impossible to get good jobs in the country because they don’t speak English like the Tamil. Appah, the wise one, repeats to both: “The principle of equality means that whatever is given to one side is also given to the other” and “no matter how complex one side becomes, both sides are held equal,” using mathematics to explain the beauty of democracy and peaceful coexistence. “Two languages equal one country. One is Tamil, one is Sinhala, but they’re both Ceylon.” Pure, civilized thoughts that are immediately swept away by the 1956 Sinhala Only Act, a law that replaced English with Sinhala as the sole official language for the whole island, excluding Tamil and other minorities’ languages.
Dushan Philips, Radhika Mudaliyar & Prakash Belawadi
There is an opportunistic politician, Vinsanda (Dushan Philips), more interested in maintaining power than caring for his country or his friends. His conscientious son, Hasa (Sukhbir Singh Walia), a heroic journalist who is his father’s opposite, has an impossible time researching and reporting the news. A corrupted Indian businessman, Sunil (Ahilan Karunaharan), is greed personified as he takes advantage of people’s misery during the struggles. And Swathi (Senuri Chandrani), the farmer Bala’s daughter, a young Tamil woman who has witnessed the murder of her innocent friends, decides to join the Tamil Tigers, an anti-government militant organization, completing the portrait of life under an authoritative regime.
Antonythasan Jesuthasan
Swathi’s brother Thirru (Kaivalya Suvarna) studied and became an engineer, a beacon of hope in his poor family. He is in love with young Radha (stunning Radhika Mudaliyar) although he knows it’s a long shot considering her social status; their witty sweet romance results in a happy marriage and pregnancy, bringing back some lightness to the story.
Nadie Kammallaweera
Radhika Mudaliyar & Nadie Kammallaweera
But, flash-forward to 2004, after 21 years in jail, older Thirru (Antonythasan Jesuthasan) is no longer that innocent engineer full of love and hope, he is a broken man who cannot even stand up straight and is trying desperately to reach his wife and son in Australia, one of the many asylum seekers who have to risk their lives to escape death.
Kaivalya Suvarna
Sukania Venugopal, Dushan Philips & Prakash Belawadi
Events in Sri Lanka escalate and we arrive at Black July: On the night of July 24th, 1983, anti-Tamil rioting starts and quickly turns into genocide, a pogrom planned to destroy their economic foundation and identity. In a frantic, well-directed scene, Appah calls everybody to try to stop it, from the police to the prime minister, while all the Tamil-owned shops and businesses in Colombo are set on fire by Sinhalese mobs, civilians are attacked and killed, women are raped, and innocent people, like Thirru, thrown in jail to be tortured. It’s the beginning of the Sri Lankan Civil War, the reason why pregnant Radha immediately flees to Australia.
Rajan Velu & Prakash Belawadi
Senuri Chandrani, Sukania Venugopal & Kaivalya Suvarna
Besides the compelling story, extraordinarily well-recounted, the theatricality of the play is whimsical and imaginative. Actors sinuously hand out props as invisible servants, translating and changing roles effortlessly; an old train station sign hanging upstage-right lets us know the time and place throughout; while snippets of ancient Sri Lankan culture, together with live Carnatic music played by Kranthi Kiran Mudigonda (violin), Venkhatesh Sritharan (flute), and Janakan Suthanthiraraj (mridangam), composed by Stefan Gregory, adds enchantment. Set and costume designer Dale Ferguson keeps it simple, just a barren front yard with a long metal gate in the back that serves the time-jumping. Costumes inject the needed colors and help us identify each character, and Damien Cooper‘s mostly understated lighting design adapts to the many changes but is razor-sharp when needed.
Sukania Venugopal & Nipuni Sharada
Sukania Venugopal & Radhika Mudaliyar
Choreographer and cultural advisor Anandavalli, Shakthidharan’s mother, has a big role in the production; she has been working in Indian classical dance for 50 years, since she was seven, leaving Sri Lanka at 12 to tour in Germany, London, and Paris. Her son’s desire to know more about the family history is the inspiration for this piece, and the importance of democracy, family, friendship, love and identity are its main themes.
Radhika Mudaliyar, Nadie Kammallaweera & Kaivalya Suvarna
Radhika Mudaliyar, Nadie Kammallaweera & Kaivalya Suvarna
You may not be familiar with Sri Lankan culture (“Sri” means “resplendent” and “Lanka” means “island”) or you may be rightly fearful of a three-and-a-half-hour play (with two long intermissions) but I assure you it is an unforgettable, worthwhile experience. Do not miss it.
The Company
photos by Pia Johnson
Counting and Cracking
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Belvoir St Theatre & Kurinji Co-Production
Public Theater in in partnership with NYU Skirball
NYU Skirball, 566 LaGuardia Place
Tues-Sun at 7; Sat & Sun at 1
ends on September 22, 2024
for tickets, visit Skirball