- Jehan Aloysius on theatre and the future
That we are at a pivotal point of change in our journey as a nation is no secret. The past three years, starting with the Easter attacks, have marked a new era – admittedly, not an era that many can look upon fondly. The aftermath of the Easter attacks led into the first stages of the pandemic (there was also that two weeks or so where we weren’t sure who the Prime Minister was), which led straight into our current economic crisis.
Some of the hardest-hit industries through this turbulent period have been, of course, the tourism industry, but also the arts. Theatre is a form of art that transcends barriers, that brooks debate, that sparks thought, that provides an escape. It has done so for millennia, and over those millennia, it has had to evolve and reinvent itself many times.
Brunch sat down with CentreStage Productions Sri Lanka Chairman and Artistic Director Jehan Aloysius for a chat on what the last few years has been like for Sri Lankan theatre practitioners and where he sees original theatre going from here.
A full-time theatre practitioner, playwright, director, and performer, Jehan founded CentreStage Productions in 2001 as an amateur theatre troupe that focuses on original theatre productions. A small team, CentreStage Productions consists of its Production Manager Dion Nanayakkara (since 2017), Tech Manager Michael Jayawardana, and Music Director Avanti Perera (both of whom have been with CentreStage Productions since 2001).
CentreStage Productions’ humanitarian arm – The StageHands Project – uses theatre as a tool for education and social change, as well as psychosocial development. This project also initiated a system for teaching and enabling creativity with those living with special needs – including soldiers injured during the war. Many original productions by the troupe have been studied or included in the syllabi of local universities.
A three-year long annus horribilis for theatre?
Speaking on the last three years, Jehan shared that it had been a difficult road for all theatre practitioners, and in CentreStage Productions’ case, there had been many new projects in the pipeline that were planned for 2020, which, for many reasons, had not come to pass.
“Obviously, there were delays and postponements, and even funding that had been secured disappeared. Even though we’d spent a lot of time, energy, and finances working on these productions, there hasn’t been any return on investment these last three years,” Jehan explained. “Even for this year, we had booked a production for March, but unfortunately, for so many reasons from the pandemic to the situation in the country, we’ve had to cancel. People find it very difficult to think of theatre and the performing arts at this time because it is such a luxury. You also feel bad promoting and pushing things like that to the public because they’re distracted with the more pressing issues of the day.”
As always, theatre remains a way to discuss and grapple with the issues we’re facing, but given the pressures the country is experiencing, it is non-conducive to staging traditional theatre productions.
The challenges facing theatre practitioners: Then vs. now
So much has changed over the last three years, and so, Brunch asked Jehan what has changed most for theatre practitioners when it comes to getting productions off the ground. Prior to 2020, the biggest challenge for practitioners was funding, especially for original works, which is exclusively what CentreStage Productions does – entirely homegrown productions across all aspects, from scriptwriting to choreography to light and sound, to costume and makeup to the many other little (and large) things it takes to bring a production to life.
Pre-2020, Jehan’s biggest challenge was convincing sponsors to take a chance on original productions as opposed to replicas of foreign productions. “A replica gets several millions in funding, but original productions sometimes get one or two sponsors or have to depend on ticket sales alone,” Jehan explained. “With original productions, people say ‘we don’t know it’ and are less willing to invest. I’ve been staging original productions for over 20 years and finding funding has always been an issue, as has been finding new actors.”
In terms of actors, the main challenge for Jehan used to be finding actors willing to take training and criticism – many young actors tend to walk into the arena thinking of themselves as professionals, and therefore can be difficult to train and reluctant to dedicate the time and effort to learn the skills of acting and singing. This is especially true in English theatre, which by nature sees actors get involved mainly for passion as there is very little by way of payment for English theatre actors given the costs of staging productions and restricted funding.
Post-2020, with the Easter attacks, the pandemic, and the economic crisis having taken their toll, there are many more problems that practitioners need to consider – theatres not being able to be filled to capacity means even more restricted revenue. Uncertainty means sponsors are even more reluctant to invest, especially as theatres can be closed or productions easily shut down if someone contracts Covid-19, or, like we’ve seen this past week, people have had to cut back on travelling because of fuel or because of other unrest.
“One production I’m working on – ‘Venus United’ – is something I’ve been working hard on for the last couple of years,” Jehan shared, giving us an example of the challenges practitioners must now face. “We’d worked on it through Zoom, but it’s a musical – it’s impossible to practise voices and harmonies online. It is also a small cast of three actors, and one of them would get Covid and recover, by which point another member would fall ill. This cycle means we lose three or four months of rehearsal time. We have to reschedule dates, reword publicity, not to mention how those struggles affect our morale. What would have been a four-month project can take almost a year because of delays, and we start to feel like we are never going to be able to stage the production. You have to keep your cast and crew motivated, enthused, and excited.”
For CentreStage Productions, not being able to stage shows to generate revenue has also seen their humanitarian work be impacted. This is, of course, compounded by the travel restrictions the pandemic brought and now by the many shortages due to the economic crisis.
The next step of theatre for our new normal
While the pandemic is low on our list of priorities right now given everything else that is going on, it must be noted that once the pandemic is ‘over’ (and it isn’t over, by any means), there will not be a magical switch back to life before the pandemic. The new normal is here to stay, and it will evolve as health risks dissipate, but that’s just it – it will evolve. The world will operate in a new way shaped by the experiences of the last few years. It will not bounce back to the same procedures and methods of 2019.
One example is how we work – remote work will not disappear, it will instead form a component of how we work going forward. In many ways theatre too will need to evolve to the new ‘bigger’ normal, and we asked Jehan how he sees Sri Lankan theatre evolving in the coming months and years. “You can’t always fill an audience with 1,000 people or more, especially now. You need to fill smaller spaces until audiences are ready, and even when things change, I don’t think they will revert to what they were originally; there will be some permanent changes and theatre will need to evolve in the same way movies and television did when Netflix happened. TV still continues, movies still continue. Theatre will also continue, albeit differently, and it is our responsibility as theatre practitioners to see that it does continue.”
“Theatre has always needed to evolve,” Jehan said, “and I think we will see theatre evolve due to poverty. People won’t be as into the flashy, flamboyant big-budget shows and the kind of theatre that came out before. It will be more like the street theatre of the 1980s and less of an elitist, escapist endeavour – theatre where you can really make a change with limited resources. You’ll also see other forms of theatre that cater to the smaller, more privileged crowd.”
One such example is a project Jehan is currently spearheading through CentreStage Productions – Epicurean Theatre; a pairing of cuisine that breaks away from the concept of dinner theatre. “We’re not giving too much away, because it is very difficult to create new concepts entirely from scratch, and unfortunately, in Sri Lanka and India, you do have people who are happy to steal ideas. But we see Epicurean Theatre as a new experience for the entertainment scene that takes theatre out of the theatre and into something new and intimate, so that people who can afford it have the chance to experience something bespoke and unique. Cuisine plays a part, and each iteration of Epicurean Theatre will be unique, curated events with no two events staying the same.”
Despite Sri Lanka’s struggles, those of privilege who can afford to do so will look for experiences that excite them, and in the evolution of theatre going forward, Jehan stressed that it was important to remember this aspect of the market as well, because creating valuable premium theatre experiences for privileged audiences is an important way for practitioners to build revenue that can be used to further and amplify more meaningful theatre and humanitarian work as well.
“As artists, we are scribes of our times,” Jehan concluded, “and we need to help the public to cope with, discuss, and interpret situations through art and find solutions through debate – something that theatre has the power to do.”