Friday, December 7, 2018

Theth Boomi - An Astonishing Theatre Experience





Some days before when I read an article Vikalpa web site, noted that drama Theth Bomi and Nadeeka Bandara, directress I never knew.

Then few days passed I had read this article, at The BMICH after maestro Kemadasa's ''Obada Mama Viya'' concert, young gay came to me and politely explained about a drama and the theatre group of them and said support them buying a ticket of that drama the Theth Boomi.

So, I watched that astonishing theater experience at Royal Thaprobanian intimate theatre on that historical and hysterical day of 26th October 2018, the day of betrayal, assert us again and again which history repeat hysterical and cyclic way in samsara- karmic circle. I wonder what's the destiny of directress of the Theth Boomi and what's the way of theater group like that in hegemonic, puritan, male dominated, patriarchal context of Sri Lanka.

When I watching the performance at Royal Thaphrobanian, I felt like watching a series of  Goya's paintings, such as Witches' Sabbath, The Great He-Goat, Witches' Flight. That was the tempest of Asian witch hunting of everyday life and the cyclone of female desire in asylum of patriarchal south Asian context, which all sedatives of neo liberal post feminism, consumerism and post modernism fails for that insanity. But I didn’t agree it’s a mere cruel theater experience. Basically it's not generic like that way, it is a hallucinatory theater of Strindberg and Peter Weiss. So like that or like Mo yang's novels, Hallucination never stabilize as a real or as a fantasy in the Theth Boomi. The critic K.K. Saman Kumara wrote in the book ''Theth Boomi Vichara Sanhitha'', co published by My Voice Theatre and Agahas publishers, about Theth Boomi and impressionism.



Nadeeka's thinking intensely based on polarity and build tension between that. Its component of intangible stream of consciousness based on borderline syndrome, not in a clinical sense. Her mind and soul have two-way switch which shift one polar in to another. It's not lesbian separatist or bisexual or heterosexual coding. It's an intangible. her drive is primitive utopian communism which reject state, patriarchy, language, codes and the name of the father. In the criticism of K.K. Saman Kumara, he says ''duality between the Chaos and TOE of male and female universe''. That’s the bi-polar or borderline syndrome in other words I had note. I think she is not a mere feminist. she has broader view of existence and entity of human soul, and historical context of the patriarchal system. She is an existentialists radical feminist. 



The drama Theth Boomi is the suicidal attack in orthodox male dominated theater and going beyond Sarah Kane's works I watched in European theater. The Asian feminine soul and ontological view of Nadeeka Bandara, transcending orthodox feminist epistemology. Theth Boomi is an avant-garde theatrical mission against postmodern theatre. And radical feminist reincarnation against neo liberal post feminism.





-Ayodya Rajasekaram