The image of actor By Gamini Haththotuwegama

In the established modern Sinhala theatre, few other plays have changes and re-shuffled their cast so much as “Suba saha Yasa”, the play had already become the rage when Upali Attanayaka, who had played the role Yasa with flamboyant assurance was suddenly not available.

It is difficult to break through an image already associated with an actor of force and formidable skill, but Simon Nawagattegama blandly stepped in, and the play went on, with the exciting role of Yasa seeming to find its supreme vindication in the author-performer himself. I have seen Upali Attanayaka in several roles on the Sinhala stage and found him an absorbing actor almost all the time, except in a disastrous tribute sometime ago to Ben Sirimanne’s Maname.

His acting is studied, cultivated and intelligent. His mannerisms are self-conscious but not too predictable, and as he showed in "Subha saha Yasa" he can stretch the range of his voice as the role demands.

I think if we can forgive him his habit of haughtily rounding his words with traces of western accent, and learn to forget certain echoes haunting the role’s very conception, we would still cherish the distinctive flare he brought into his playing.

When one first sees Simon Nawagattegama one wonders whether he is not imitating Upali Attanayaka, but soon one realizes that Simon is essentially imitating himself, in a role that shows the author off to some advantage.

With comparatively limited but enormously improved skills Simon rides this tour, de force. Thinner, smaller in stature than Upali, he sends a series of sparks with more predictable emphasis yet with a more knowing rascality.

Yasa- play acts the guard Subha: Simon distracts attention outrageously. His exuberance is child like delight: you’ll recognize and love the comedian in his own right.

Of course from the very beginning this roles appears to have conceived (both by Upali and Simon) in the shadow of Peter O’Tools Henry the second. And Simon brings a little more peter sellers in to it.

There is that most awkward patch in the performance – and the play: the characteristic anti-feminist slop-up.  Here Simon’s habit of finger pointing, nay-expounding his lines as it were- and more flatly I’m afraid, than the earlier actor could have done – succumbs to its heavy handed over-much.

Yet in performance after performance this play more than survives. It is amazing: no other work seems to have acquired the right to sponged on its weakness, flaunt them, and wash the author’s somewhat philosophical dirty linen in public.

Here we light upon one essential difference in the approach of the two actors. A matter of involvement and identification. Upali A. is forever the detached near professional. Simon Nawagattegama can hardly submerge (can he?) the well-known polemical essayist – author who is almost too full of words and run-away ideas, in a drama that is too full of word and run-away ideas!

It is with discomfort that he tackles his secondary role of the rebel –substitute – as indeed does the play it-self tackle the whole character and situation of the rebel, without seriously bothering the audiences. They really took both the old and the new endings of the play in their stride.

If Subha saha Yasa seems to be the most popular play of the post – 1956 established modern Sinhala theatre, I think its popularity stems from other things from the unusual extent  to which the performer, and by performer I mean the comprehensive author- performer, emerges.

It is the most singular boost of for individualism in this theatre since the days of “Ape Kattiya” (Their individualism however came through a palpable group identity).

I first saw Santin Gunawardana playing Subha and now others have come in, and comparisons are on. Santin is an actor who has dynamism, conveying strength he seems to hold in reserve. It is this that helped him put over that finely poised Simon Chachava in Jayasena’s  “Hunu watea kathawa”.

However I think that he acts more by presence than anything else, and with his departure the formidable charm he brought to the controversial rebel hero was certainly lost.

Rinsely Weerarathne, the young unknown actor, who took over from Santin is tall, thin almost to a fault, and nearly burns him-self out in the role.

For the first few minutes and sometimes thereafter he appears to struggle in uneven competition with a Yasa launched well on his way. Perhaps he plays Subha too much on a tight rope all the time: I certainly wish he would let himself go when he starts play-acting the King.

His voice needs more body. Yet what the relatively inexperienced actor offer is a serious thoughtful reading of his role which unfortunately – the play itself is ultimately hard pressed to accommodate.

He challenges the facile notion of the sleek glamor boy rebel hero that seems to mean so much even to highly literate middle class audiences. He plays the rebel hero on the edge of his nerves, taking his conflict, his perplexity seriously all the time.

While he grows in to the play gradually, the role for the first time gains definition. Watch his in the final scene where, seated on the throne with the real Yasa already disposed of, the dilemma grips him, at first in bewilderment and then in despair. It is powerful, that a triumph of silent acting: the new ending hangs together. Rinsley Weeraratne is one of the finest among a newly-risen generation of silent actors or pantomimes.

Already doubling the role with Rinsley is another actor – Wijaya Nandasiri who had hitherto sweetened the role of the chief minister in this play, and tried it for its gimmicky possibilities. It should be interesting to watch him as Subha.

What is happening in “Subha saha Yasa” is symptomatic of the pressure of the entertainment industry threatening to take over a lively armature enterprise. Adjustments are not unreasonable and quite welcome. All too often they seem to come by accident, default or as a result of tug-o-war between actors and/or actor producer.

Opportunities come up for other and new actors. There is no development system of understudying here. But doubling of roles is practices more often and on rational basis too.

Fundamentally however, it seems to be left to the pull of competitive individualism to determine whatever fluidity there is. Actors move here and there looking for opportunities. A healthy community ensemble with a flexible training and casting system seems to be a difficult dream. Add to all that illusions and realistic tradition, on which the established theatre largely bases itself, this encourages that fixed image identification which is facet of individualism.