An artiste is an artiste and not a politician

by Rikaza Hassan

I was late when I arrived at the quaint orange cottage like house that houses Safeer’s black box theatre, the first of its kind in the country somewhere in Rajagiriya -- just don’t ask me for directions. I walked through a black billowy curtain and straight into the little theatre where Nadeeka sat chewing gum and Nalaka was reciting his lines as they rehearsed. S. Dayalan was looking on from a step below. I removed my shoes and was showed into Safeer’s office and then the library. Black billowy curtains were everywhere. The little room that was the library housed a collection of movies many of which were rare items such as the first silent movies. As I lingered, running my finger down the spines of books, leafing through the accompanying handbooks before combing the scrapbooks that contained tickets of his plays and cut-outs from newspapers, Safeer wandered off to smoke a cigarette. I was all but ready to begin reading a magazine, having shut out the projecting voices of the actors when Safeer came back.
Mohamed Safeer is a director, playwright, set designer, publisher. He has won seven youth awards, five state drama awards, produced about 20 short plays and 12 plays, and authored three drama books - a stage management handbook, Pasthachaya production script, and the complete collection of Safeer scripts.
As we made small talk and discussed the theatre festival he has organized, scheduled to begin tomorrow, he reminded me that it was almost a year since he staged the first black box theatre production in Sri Lanka. I was taken back to the first time that I met Safeer at his production of Horst Hawemann’s Empty Space Chair Taken in Sinhala, at the Goethe Institut, when he put me on the spot during discussion. Obviously I got through that still suitably impressed, weathered the worst movie in modern times of a friend of his, didn’t turn up for a number of his events ---- and now was finally here for what would turn out to be about 130 minutes of tape.
“Do you know where Sedawatte is?” he asked me before replying his own question, “It’s under the Kelaniya bridge. That’s where I grew up, among drug dealers, thieves and prostitutes.” He continued “What Gorky and Chekov saw in Russia and wrote about, what I read about ... I have seen. Prostitutes are not a magic trick to me. I know what they do with the money they earn, they feed their children. I know what a thief does with the money he steals, he buys himself a packet of rice.”
“I’ve come a long way. I went to school, went to university, interacted with intellectuals, I’ve drunk until dawn and then attended university lectures, I have forgotten about home and they had forgotten me, and now... I’ve got a great family, two beautiful children who eat cheese and travel only in private vehicles,” he added with a smile, and a shake of his head.
“I’ve changed and I’ve changed others. I know the lowest classes and the higher classes. Art can do this.”
Safeer who styles himself as a self taught dramatist having no formal education in the field (he studied mass communication) and is a firm believer of this route to art, claimed that art can bring about the attitudinal change that everyone agrees is a need of the hour. “Art can give people the tools to become sensitive, transparent, and respectful. It can give them the logic to reason things out.” However, these are long-term projects he said citing workshops that he has conducted with Hambantota and Nuwara Eliya residents - “You can’t stay angry with someone you’ve shared a plate of rice with.” As the participants take home their new attitudes and thinking, it slowly spreads to family members and so on.
There are 160 cultural centres under the cultural ministry, said Safeer, and not one of these has ever produced anything. “The libraries are locked, the musical instruments are not in working order and there’s no one to teach.” The youth, said Safeer, need a space to express their creativity, to engage in study. This lack he said is one reason why there are so many youth issues nowadays. “There are places of worship in every town and village but still the youth have no empathy. They need ‘cultural space’. I am only one man and I can’t fix the whole country but black box is a good way to begin that. If people in each area could come together to put together such a place which is cost effective...”
“You want to know something funny?” he asked. Of course I did. “Do you know that the Sri Lanka University of Performing Arts has no theatre? All it has is a lecture hall. How are they going to practice what they learn? Katada mewa kiyanne?”

Art and culture

We all possess a blank space in our life, which can only be filled by art and culture, continued Safeer.
But isn’t our culture in jeopardy? Aren’t our politicians desperately trying to protect it? He became visibly agitated. “You [journalists] speak to politicians, ask them what culture is. The only culture they know is to wear the national costume. Ask them how many types of dance there is down south, in Jaffna, the Muslim dances in Kathankudi? What is the last book they read? Do they even know of Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie, Tasleema Nasreen - these are very famous names,” he said. “Behaviour and attitude combined gives culture. Politicians don’t know culture.” By now he really is angry. “Who is the politician who attends an art event? When eight beauty queens wear short skirts they are all in an uproar about culture, without looking up, instead of at their skirts. What about the money generated from such a visit?” he questioned.
And then: “We don’t have a culture, no? Where is it? We had one once upon a time -- but politicians and society have destroyed it.” He elaborated “I love my mother, I will even nurse her through an illness but I don’t think that my son will look after me.
Modern youth won’t cry when their parents are dead. I’m already preparing myself for when my six-year-old will grow up and leave.”
Arts and politics don’t mix he went on, and while people do make mistakes, artistes dabbling in politics, is...selfish which is antithetical to what being an artiste is all about, he commented.
What about those who say they don’t understand art, that it is exclusive? “Don’t confuse doing art with watching it,” he replied. “If the audience does not understand, they must take it as a challenge. Art cannot pander to the masses by simply giving it jokes. Even if people ask for lame material, the artiste must always present only good material.”

Karkashai/sundarai

Is the concept of a struggling artiste only a stereotype, I ask. “Of course it’s hard,” he answered. “An artiste must search, research, fund and always be updated. Otherwise how can he communicate with his audience?”
But if artistes are supposed to be revolutionary, open to experimentation at least, why are they giving him such a hard time for trying out black box theatre?
“We don’t even have an art policy because we can’t get together. Besides people only valued Saratchandra about 10 years before he died. When Sugathapala Mendis was paralysed and consequently died, there was not even a social fund. We award awards posthumously, or wait until they have reached their 80s. You must appreciate people when they’re young and alive. We’re all about starting when the end has arrived.”
As for his pet project, he stated that he has no issue if black box is rejected, if it is done so for genuine reasons and not as a personal attack on him. They must present a paper citing the reasons they believe it is not suitable he said. Continued Safeer: “If they accept black box in about 10 -15 years I’ll be happy, but I know they won’t. They are angry because this did not come via the universities but rather via a self-educated dramatist who received a theatre scholarship to Germany.”
I asked him what it is to be a dramatist for two decades. “The theatre life is karakashai (difficult), but also sundarai (wonderful). I have spoken to you for so long without a single sip of water. Theatre gave me that energy. Theatre gave me the ability to stand up and speak for myself at any level, anywhere.”
However his future as a dramatist is marked, with Safeer having set the clock on it.
“I’ll have to be insane to be still doing this in 10 years,” he remarked, “if I receive no help. I will let go. My son will be doing his O/Ls and I will have to be there for my children. Even I have a limit to being in debt.” And on that note our conversation came to an end and off he went for another cigarette.