Saturday, October 25, 2014

The Politics Of Pusswedilla: A Review Of The Antire Solooshen Summit

By Hafeel Farisz -October 25, 2014

Hafeel Farisz

Sri Lankans know how to laugh. They also know how to laugh at themselves. They can even laugh with others who laugh at them. They know how to make political jokes and to use humor to critique people, things and political positions. ‘Puswedilla’ is a hit and has been one for a long time now.

Pusswedilla, as the ‘stage play’ or rather series of plays is referred to, in fact does what political satire is supposed to do, which in the most crudest of terms is ridicule dedicated to exposing the difference between reality and appearance in public life,although with many a caveat.

The inverted commas used when describing the ‘play’ is intentional because if there ever was something that was a cross between a street show/ political carnival and a play it has to be this. The audience got a kind of a preview even before the show began. They were made to be part of a long queue walking towards a ‘ Poling boother’ to get their tickets sealed , for no apparent reason except to indicate what it might feel to be at a polling booth. That’s what the audience was welcomed with. Walking out of the theatre three hours later and realizing that the polling booth had no connection to the play or its theme, was reflective of the play as a whole- It was something that seemed to have been put there simply because it was funny.

The cast was impressive with the likes of Pasan Ranaweera, Dominic Kellar and Gehan Block who have over the years proved to be versatile actors, but the play was little more than slapstick comedy. It possessed little imagination, taste and sarcasm. Perhaps the lack of all that was intentional given the fact that the audience the writer was catering to did not enter the Lionel Wendt to watch a tasteful play, but sarcasm or else the producers imagined they were so.