The power of theatre sometimes, though rarely, allows one to enter an auditorium cherishing a certain set of beliefs and exit it with those beliefs shattered. If such was the purpose of Ragdoll, directed by Jerome de Silva, sponsored by Dulux, and presented by the Workshop Players from the 22nd to the 24th of May, the play was a monumental success.
I walked into the Lionel Wendt that fateful Saturday possessing—like the vast majority of humanity—an abhorrence of child abuse and a genuine sympathy for all who have suffered it. I emerged from the theatre an hour later filled with a callous indifference, all my reserves of sympathy for innocence betrayed, exhausted. I felt acute pity, certainly, but it was solely for myself.
To write about what was wrong with the play is an exercise in masochism—it requires one to reflect, to remember. Yet in the hope that this diatribe shall prevent repetition of such horrors, I shall sacrifice my present happiness to this task.
The play—if such a grim excrescence of the imagination can be called a play—begins with a little girl and her ragdoll, upon a bed, atop a platform. It is clear that all is not right from the outset—during playtime, the little girl asks the ragdoll whether he will come again.
He—we later learn that he is her stepfather—does. The little girl rushes down the platform, huddles in a corner of the stage, and, in the only moving performance of the entire night, screams and screams as he lies with her ragdoll. She goes back up after it’s all over; comforts the doll, asks if it hurts.
Rhetorically: “Was it worse than the last time?”
In unison: “It’s always worse than the last time”
And so, the preaching begins. During the course of the play, we are treated to a crude, sanctimonious miscegenation of good intentions, righteous indignation and condescension that could have been ripped straight out of an INGO textbook; in fact, probably was.
We are told that the cause of child abuse in this country is our culture. We are told that there are good people out there ready to ride to the rescue, but that Sri Lankan prudery and familial pride are at the heart of a deafening silence on the issue that only serves to perpetuate it.
“No matter how much we publicize it, the problem just doesn’t go away”, says a frustrated Good Samaritan at one point. Later, to prove it, the aging grandfather of the little girl—now grown into a do-gooder Child Psychiatrist—rails against the shame any revelation of child abuse would cause his family. It’s an insult even to cliché.
Apart from the preening condescension of the script and the woeful ineptness of the direction—the ragdoll, commenting asininely, often evoked a Von Trapp child cuckooing—there was the acting. It was abysmal. Leaving aside the child actors, lest the self-righteous abuse-hounds unleash their hordes, I shall consider only the adults.
The grown up little girl was interpreted with all the subtlety and none of the charm of a bulldozer run amuck. Her fiancé, clearly a hammy escapee from a Tarzan film, was even ghastlier. Her grandfather, interpreted as a stolid dullard or perhaps simply played by one, was utterly atrocious. As for the eponymous ragdoll—transforming rapidly from an extension of the subconscious mind to a full blown symptom of schizophrenia—the less said, the better.
Which brings me, finally, to the principal philosophical problem underlying Ragdoll. It takes the softest of soft targets and hammers it with a Howitzer. Its very sententiousness eviscerates sympathy, its sanctimony fosters scorn, its servility to the INGO mindset beggars belief. It is a bullying, self-righteous, obnoxious, mephitic screed that should never have been put on before the paying public. Let us hope we never see its like again.
How different, how refreshing, how wonderful it was to step into the Punchi the next night to watch the other play on the boards that weekend: Tennessee Williams’ Out Cry, directed by Namel Weeramuni, sponsored by the American Center. Though its execution had flaws, it would be churlish to cavil. The most difficult play in Williams’ oeuvre, ripe with metaphor and allegory, blurring the distinctions between fact and fiction, neurosis and sanity, reality and surrealism, it is the hardest of hard targets to aim at. Failure or success aside, the effort was noble. And this in itself, on a weekend like that, is enough.
I walked into the Lionel Wendt that fateful Saturday possessing—like the vast majority of humanity—an abhorrence of child abuse and a genuine sympathy for all who have suffered it. I emerged from the theatre an hour later filled with a callous indifference, all my reserves of sympathy for innocence betrayed, exhausted. I felt acute pity, certainly, but it was solely for myself.
To write about what was wrong with the play is an exercise in masochism—it requires one to reflect, to remember. Yet in the hope that this diatribe shall prevent repetition of such horrors, I shall sacrifice my present happiness to this task.
The play—if such a grim excrescence of the imagination can be called a play—begins with a little girl and her ragdoll, upon a bed, atop a platform. It is clear that all is not right from the outset—during playtime, the little girl asks the ragdoll whether he will come again.
He—we later learn that he is her stepfather—does. The little girl rushes down the platform, huddles in a corner of the stage, and, in the only moving performance of the entire night, screams and screams as he lies with her ragdoll. She goes back up after it’s all over; comforts the doll, asks if it hurts.
Rhetorically: “Was it worse than the last time?”
In unison: “It’s always worse than the last time”
And so, the preaching begins. During the course of the play, we are treated to a crude, sanctimonious miscegenation of good intentions, righteous indignation and condescension that could have been ripped straight out of an INGO textbook; in fact, probably was.
We are told that the cause of child abuse in this country is our culture. We are told that there are good people out there ready to ride to the rescue, but that Sri Lankan prudery and familial pride are at the heart of a deafening silence on the issue that only serves to perpetuate it.
“No matter how much we publicize it, the problem just doesn’t go away”, says a frustrated Good Samaritan at one point. Later, to prove it, the aging grandfather of the little girl—now grown into a do-gooder Child Psychiatrist—rails against the shame any revelation of child abuse would cause his family. It’s an insult even to cliché.
Apart from the preening condescension of the script and the woeful ineptness of the direction—the ragdoll, commenting asininely, often evoked a Von Trapp child cuckooing—there was the acting. It was abysmal. Leaving aside the child actors, lest the self-righteous abuse-hounds unleash their hordes, I shall consider only the adults.
The grown up little girl was interpreted with all the subtlety and none of the charm of a bulldozer run amuck. Her fiancé, clearly a hammy escapee from a Tarzan film, was even ghastlier. Her grandfather, interpreted as a stolid dullard or perhaps simply played by one, was utterly atrocious. As for the eponymous ragdoll—transforming rapidly from an extension of the subconscious mind to a full blown symptom of schizophrenia—the less said, the better.
Which brings me, finally, to the principal philosophical problem underlying Ragdoll. It takes the softest of soft targets and hammers it with a Howitzer. Its very sententiousness eviscerates sympathy, its sanctimony fosters scorn, its servility to the INGO mindset beggars belief. It is a bullying, self-righteous, obnoxious, mephitic screed that should never have been put on before the paying public. Let us hope we never see its like again.
How different, how refreshing, how wonderful it was to step into the Punchi the next night to watch the other play on the boards that weekend: Tennessee Williams’ Out Cry, directed by Namel Weeramuni, sponsored by the American Center. Though its execution had flaws, it would be churlish to cavil. The most difficult play in Williams’ oeuvre, ripe with metaphor and allegory, blurring the distinctions between fact and fiction, neurosis and sanity, reality and surrealism, it is the hardest of hard targets to aim at. Failure or success aside, the effort was noble. And this in itself, on a weekend like that, is enough.
Superb review, Loki..
ReplyDeleteI must say, I am pleasantly surprised by this piece. What has kept you away from the blogsphere? You are indeed gifted.
ReplyDeleteTYFR
You're welcome Loki :)
ReplyDeleteI added your blog to my Google reader so that I'd always know when you post something new :)
Glad you're around.. :)
I didnt see the play - you made me glad I didn't!!!! One of the best pieces of writing I have read in a really really long time. I'm with archangel
ReplyDeleteHi. Really enjoyed reading your post. I'm one of the actors in The Outcry, and would love a little more feedback about the play. What did you think were the flaws and the positives?
ReplyDeleteyouch! now thats a review!
ReplyDeleteMay be u just didn't get it? Lol.
ReplyDeleteApologies for returning so late.
ReplyDelete@Just Chillin', Ayeshea and DeeCee: many thanks for the comments, and I'm glad you liked the post. I shall definitely try to keep up with the reviews as time permits.
@Anonymous: I really hope you're referring to the latter play. If so, please see below. :-)
@ladymirth: as mentioned in the review, what I appreciated about Out Cry was the bravery of the attempt, and I salute those of you who were part of it. I did not elaborate on the play in the review because its purpose there was as a positive counterpoint to the ordure that was Ragdoll. Since you've asked, however, I will discuss my primary problem with the play here.
Essentially, while the energy on stage was brilliant, I thought the performances uneven. Any play that abounds with symbolism and dwells in the ephemeral nexus between reality and the surreal requires its actors to carefully modulate their performances. In this instance, the upper register was far too frequently hit, resulting in a distracting shrillness that was ultimately wearying.
A little more subtlety in the performances would have allowed the myriad metaphors and allusions in the play--eternal recurrence, theatre as prison, psychosis, regeneration and decrepitude, etc--to emerge from the soil of realism rather than artifice. Unfortunately, Felice and Clare were too obviously symbolic to elicit any empathy. As a result, the play sagged.
If this sounds like an indictment, it is not. This production of Out Cry may not have been a success, but the failures of genius are so much more interesting than the successes of mediocrity. Please, please keep them coming.