A renowned film director and actor Sanjaya Leelaratna’s maiden stage drama ‘Karapincha Ona’ was staged at the Namel Malini Punchi Theatre recently. The production deserves a detailed significant analysis. It projects a series of major thoughts prevalent among the young men and women in their busy daily chores.
Leelaratne has captured how the young crowd indulges in various passionate interests. But this very same young generation does not fail to pay tribute to the parents who made them stand on their feet.
The cheapest of leafy goodness with the richest nutrients nature could possess, karapincha or curry leaves grow in abundance in the jungles. It is a must to the gravy of a curry which flavours medicinally and otherwise and should be never thrown off the plate. On the contrary however that fate befalls the elders who are thrown out to the streets. With brilliantly captured dialogues, Leelaratne disseminates the message across to the younger generation.
The dialogues carry a strong sense of humour from the very beginning to the end and last for two hours in an Elders’ home. Tales about mistreatment of the elderly can be truly horrifying. According to a recent by, a considerable portion of Sri Lankan elders now live with the extended families. While Colombo has the highest number of senior citizens who own property, over the years they become meek and dependent on their children. And that is generally when problems surface and resurface. There are shelters for homeless elderly people run by various organisations, known under different names, but these shelters are usually packed.
Although children boast about their parents, the latter weep in the absence of the former. Leelaratne’s brilliance shines as he depicts all these tragic elements in a comical manner extraordinaire. Some members of the audience, in fact, fell off a chair succumbing to an uncontrollable laughter. Fortunately or maybe otherwise, Leelaratne makes us picturise what we shall not. The elderly characters are played with a potent and blank kind of restraint by an experienced cast.
The play stars Ratnasheila Perera, Rajasinghe Loluwagoda, Rohitha Dias, Jeewani Nirupakumari, Yohan Ranasinghe, Charith Senanayake, Lakshman Amerasekera, Lasantha de Alwis and Niroshan Walippuli.
Comedies have given us variations on the local stage. As the audience, we have been encouraged to see the hypocrisy. But ‘Karapincha’ is much colder than that. It gives us creeps through a roaring laughter. The elders you see on the stage are a bit detached, but their life is turned around when they witness a stabbing in the social system.
We, as the audience, desperately try to help these victims. Unlike most stage comedies, Leelaratne’s play is about articulate elders from different backgrounds. Yet this is not necessarily absurd or delusional. For all their vulnerability and high-wire emotional recklessness, these elders cannot be considered victims of circumstances. They rather issue smoke signals to a younger generation on what path they should take up.
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