Veteran dramatist Jehan Aloysius’s latest youth project for 2024 is the brand new 20th anniversary edition of his hit production of Rag – The Musical, which made world headlines in 2012 when it was featured by the BBC. This musical masterpiece has always been enjoyed by audiences since it was first staged in 2004. It has received rave reviews and standing ovations every night. The revised and streamlined new version of the show will be staged at the Lionel Wendt Theatre on July 19 and 21.
Jehan has been fostering creativity, art and social change in Sri Lanka for well over two decades now. His volunteer theatre projects have included psychosocial development, trauma therapy, and reconciliation through theatre, as well as notable works with the disabled.
Jehan’s disability arts projects with injured soldiers and the hearing impaired community, since 2009, have resulted in the groundbreaking productions of An Inspired Swan Lake and Nutcracker, which shot many of his performers to international fame and opportunities.
Over the past two and a half decades, Jehan has been mentoring young people, as well as training peer leaders within communities to learn creative expression. These peer leaders have used theatre as a tool for grappling with social issues, such as domestic violence, ragging, bullying, post-war reconciliation and even teaching of English as a second language.
Streamlined script
The new production features a streamlined script which celebrates the original songs and music, as well as a fresh cast of talented performers who have recently been making name for themselves as singers, actors and dancers. The youthful cast has been developing their skills in dancing, acting, singing and event acrobatics, since many of Jehan’s shows include his signature physical theatre and movement. Jehan believes that his new batch of ‘rag-a-muffins’, as they call themselves, have developed and grown as performers through the many months of free training workshops and masterclasses that Jehan has been conducting for them.
The talented cast of soloists includes Dion Nanayakkara (The Voice, Pyramus and Thisby, Rag, Bengal Bungalow), Angelo Gamage (Derana Superstar), Milinda Randeniya (And Then There Were None), Isira Edussuriya (Julius Caesar) and others.
The musical is written, composed and directed by Jehan Aloysius, who also handles the choreography and production design. The orchestration and musical performance are by Avanti Perera, who is Jehan’s long-time musical collaborator. Choral harmonies are by Deshan Cooray and Eshantha Peiris.
Jehan also plans to conduct free forum theatre workshops on ragging and bullying with schoolchildren. These workshops are part of the ‘Power of One’ volunteer project for young people.
Jehan believes that original theatre in Sri Lanka urgently needs more support and patronage to survive and even thrive. When supporting local work, one supports and develops local artistes and creativity, while the favouring foreign shows takes money out of the country in the form of the substantial performance rights.
As someone wisely said, there was never an international scene without a local one, so supporting local talent also adds to literature, culture and builds potential for local theatre to reach international levels.
Homegrown talent
Sadly, most corporates are either ignorant to that when making their decisions for support, since normalising homegrown talent is something that still needs to be encouraged. This is detrimental to local art and artistes. This will result in future generation that will be unable to create or be original. True patrons of the arts need to develop originality and creative expression, as well as to direct money back to the country.
Jehan said, “I would like to encourage more support for original theatre among audiences and patrons of the arts. One would be amazed by what our local theatre practitioners can create, if given the opportunity. Centre Stage Productions is amateur drama group. We all do this for our passion for community theatre and not as a business, since the English language audiences are small, and English language theatre in Sri Lanka is essentially non-profit.”
He added, “However, since 2002, many of my own original works have been travelling and touring and representing the country at International Theatre Festivals including Asia’s Largest Theatre Festival, The Bharat Rang Mahotsav and Theatre Olympics. All these tours have also been funded for the most part from the proceeds of our shows. Our plays have been taught, studied and written about in Universities over the past two and a half decades. This is possibly due to the quality of our homegrown productions, which have been recognised internationally. My aim is to create new generations of those who can do the same. Even when sponsors decline to support, artistes continue to struggle to deliver shows to audiences, the show can and will always go on.”
