by Carl Muller
The British School of Colombo came to Kandy recently. Not the whole school but a group of eager Sri Lankan students, all in their big white coach, all full of fun... and the wet and shiny road over the Lake held its breath as they coasted in.

Helga’s Folly, formerly the Chalet Hotel, beamed welcome and the kids swarmed in, a buzzbomb of sheer joie de vivre. A short-legged and nice-legged Alison Fryer was their shepherdess and hers was the task of keeping her flock together and focused on the purpose of their visit. The girls would be the soul-sold Bacchae and there was a stout-voiced Dionysius and a staircase would pretend to be a mountain and in the wings would stand the palace of Cadmus.

While the rain bucketed down and trumpet flowers hung soaked heads in despair, Helga’s Folly would resound to one of the tragedies of ancient Thebes.

A select and highly appreciative audience sat around the "stage" that was no stage at all but the Door bedewed with gold leaves. The players gave us Athens - an Athens buffieted by a wave of foreign influence the worship of Bacchus and the cult of the vine and honey becoming once again the nectar of the gods.

The players could not very well bring to view the Eastern orgies of Dionysius, but the black-robed girls were surely his rout of wild women, given to fits of scandalous excitement. Dionysius, played by Shaun Abayasinghe had his own personal peeve. Why wouldn’t Athens and now Thebes own him to be a god? Wasn’t he the son of Zeus by Semale; and didn’t he keep a god-like youth, both handsome and effeminate; clothed in panther skin, crowned with vine leaves, carrying as his scepter the ivy-wreathed Thyrsus?

The Bacchae (or Bacchants or Maenads) were superb in their dumb frenzies and rabid praises of their soul-snatcher. To bring Euripides to a resort as folly-ish as Helga’s Folly was a masterstroke. As Alison said later, "‘This is a place where all imagination bursts into flower - where the classical myths and legends can be reborn and relived."

The king of Thebes at the time of this play, was Pentheus (played by Joel Chokatte) and, as mythic history tells us, he was all for sternly putting down the exotic worship of Dionysius. He refused to accept that Dionysius was a god and, primly hypocritical or hypocritically prim, he abhorred the Bacchanalian revelry.

The centuries may have passed swiftly, but even today, if some of our prom hypocrites were to see Nicholas Poussin’s famous painting of a Bacchanalia, they would cover their faces with their hands and make sure to peek through their fingers! The play when staged in Colombo, had had its share of prim criticism, Somehow, our holy smokes and sainted aunts recoiled at the fact that there was blood and gore and had to ask why schoolgirls should act out scenes of murder and play the parts of mind-blown slaves to a god.

I find it sad indeed that some of our holier-than-thou’s have so little of the classical soul in them. Yet, if audiences elsewhere were nose-led by their own reject mode, Kandy was both welcoming and open-armed.

I think much would have been made clear if the performance was introduced - a sort of chorus, telling audiences of how Thebes was founded in bloodshed and of the hatreds of rival gods; the sowing of the dragon’s teeth and the curse of Ares that brought the children of Cadmus to evil ends. Now, it is Pentheus who rules, having dethroned his grandfather Cadmus.

The play was no makeshift affair. Even in so unusual a setting, the children played their parts superbly - Dionysius beguiling Pentheus to spy on the rites of Bacchus in secret, shamefully disguised as a woman. There was no tree to climb, true, but the awful tragedy of it all caught the audience square when his own mother (played by Virginia Hapuarachchige), leading the crew of the Bacchante, pulled him down from his hiding place and tore him to pieces in their madness. It was Dionysius’ revenge and as the dirge for Pentheus rose in liquid notes, there was the Bacchante’s roar of triumph for as they cried, "God has created the impossible!"

Perhaps it would have been of some use to the audience to be also clued in on the concept of "god" in ancient Greece. Dionysius was a god. He even gave to old King Midas the reward of the golden touch. He was the god who took the despairing Ariadne as his wife. There were, in truth, generations of gods and Dionysius, like Cupid, belonged to a later generation. In the Greek world confusion was confounded by the importation of ancient foreign deities like Isis and Serapis.

"God" as we know and acknowledge today has no truck with the antics of the Grecian gods. Had audiences come to realize this, they wold not have brought their hang-ups to sit in critical judgement over what is certainly an excellent rendering of Euripides’ work.

Helga Blow-Perera, owner of Helga’s Polly was quite excited about it all. "I never thought that the Folly could provide so ideal a setting for classical Greek drama," she said, and was assured by Alison that the hotel was indeed a true platform for the performing arts. "The sheer informality, the lanky surround. The sudden face-to-face with the bizarre, the priceless fittings as old as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard... why, this hotel is as mysterious as the mystery religions of the Graeco-Roman world!? Allison added: "I didn’t need to motivate the kids. They acted as they never had before. I feel that in simply exploring this wonderful place, absolutely reeking with atmosphere, brought them face-to-face with Dionysius, god of the vine and vengeance and vegetation. Her seems to lord it over this place, Chief of the Mysteries, Chief Herdsman and Bearer of the Phallus."

Certainly, Helga’s Folly was the place to make old Theban dreams unwind. The children of the British School in Colombo, like all high-spirited kids, did their thing, then dashed away to the pool where with a driving drizzle and ginger beer, they did what Ariadne surely did - gave themselves to the loving embrace of crystal water.

The play was masterly and executed with an all-absorbing intensity. The ovation was long-drawn and the rain drummed applauding fingers too. Just kids... untouched by the poison of man versus god, showing us how well they could render to Olympus that which Olympus spews forth. They were sorry to go, to leave, as Allison called it, this Villa of Mysteries, but the big white bus did roll away. No Dionysius, no Maenads, no grieving mother of Pentheus and no warm corpse to carry back even though it lay on the gold leaf-spattered floor, the wraps artfully stained with red food colouring.

They came, they played their parts, they went. But they left their mark... and Helga’s Folly will always remember how god - some god - created the impossible!

Allow me to be fair to all and give you the cast:

Chorus: Josiena Chokatte; Inta Manik; Rumeshi Wijayakumara; Natasha de Costa; Lara Florente; Natasha Martinus; Hannah Page; Sheana Hannan; Lea du Plessis; Tamara Jayasundera; Ashini Shanmugaretnam; Chandri Jayatilleke; Meneka Dharmapala; Virginia Hapuarachchige

Dionysius: Shaun Abayasinghe

Agane: Virginia Hapuarachchige Pentheus: Joel Chokatte

Tuerenas: Upeksha Fernando

Cadmus also figured (Prianjan) and a messenger (Tariq Majeed). The guards were Abdulla Ameer, Ashan Bogollagama, Himeshi Hewawasam, Thivarlca Abeyratne and Nashita Wijesundera.

Director Alison Fryer has been in Sri Lanka for 18 months and leaves soon to direct the Drama Department at Haileybury, UK., and also to research for her PhD. The play was conceived when the British School in Colombo wished to enter for the International Schools Drama Competition. Alison was asked to provide an hour of Greek Theatre. "I chose something with energy - both physical and mental. I picked Euripedes, cut it down to half-an-hour, wrote some incidental music and a song for Agane’s lament." She smiled. "The reaction from the audience was "memorable". I hope the views of some persons, the silent audiences, the judges who did not even wish to acknowledge the existence of the play, will never put off the young performers who accept the challenge of forward-looking theatre. I find this a great offence and stifling to the arts. I suppose Euripedes sounds intimidating to some because they suffer from a lack of exposure. They simply could not grasp a story of ecstasy and mind-possession, of murder, and of a mother needing to feel her own son’s blood."

I, for one, loved every minute of the play. It was the most refreshing piece of young entertainment ever. Let us remember that Greek Theatre is as modern as what is produced today. Allow me to give you the typical Greek psyche in this little verse from Archilochos:

Such was the desire of love

that gave a twist

under my heart and over my eyes

shed a great mist

snatching the tender heart

clean out of my breast,

Wretched I lie and long,

alone, unspirited, pierced to the bone

it’s the god’s fault

that I in misery loie

Perhaps it was this same feeling of despondency that seized the children of the British School after their stage love was trampled upon, But Alison was not letting go. She brought them to Helga’s Folly and the play was a knockout! Truly, in Helga’s Folly the gods of music, art and drama created the impossible!.