Directed by Ruwanthie de Chickera and presented by AnandaDrama and Stages Theatre Group, ‘Grease Yaka’ sought to explore how fears and phobias grow in society, how they are cultivated and how they affect us all. It did so in a form of caricature so exaggerated that it mirrored the ridiculousness and fantastical quality of the fears themselves. The entire play was indirect commentary on the current situation in Sri Lanka, using the phenomenon of the Grease yaka to illustrate how utterly absurd these fears are, and how silly we are to buy in to them as well.

The play was devised, with Ruwanthie picking out the best parts of the scenes that the students and alumni of Ananda College as well as actors from Stages Theatre Group came up with. Around 30 scenes were whittled down to half of that to create what is at first a disjointed narrative that featured different types of people and their reactions to the fears, becoming a coherent story with a masterful ending.

The groups of people included the Fatties, played by Pemanthi Fernando, Rajitha Hettiarachchi and Ravin Hettiarachchi, who guzzled down food they sometimes couldn’t identify and were more afraid of the invisible, vague presence of the grease yaka than of their unhealthy lifestyle. The Beauties, Miranga Ariyaratne, Eshani Seneviratne, Lakshitha Edirisinghe, were so concerned with their appearances that their extreme forms of beautification were nothing compared to the threat of the yaka. Dinoo Wickramage and Vidura Manoratne played a mother and son, with even the over-protective mother seeing her son’s escape as a kidnapping, all of these incidents showing the blindness of people when it comes to irrational fears versus what they really should do something about. The Night Race Driver and his lackey the Mechanic, unambiguously symbolic, were played excellently by Tharkana Kulatunga and Gavin Ranasinghe, and his feeding off of the grease, its usefulness to him was obvious. They were all caricatured almost beyond belief but each represented more than what they did on the surface.

The four opportunists were brilliant, Nandun Dissanayake, Eraj Gunawardena, Thilina Udayaratne and Minul Muhandiramge were a wonderful team, with a stylised but realistic portrayal of the various groups of people who stand to benefit from such fears. Charith Dissanayake’s policeman was amazing too, almost a sympathetic character, a victim, until the last scene when he puts the blame on someone else to save his own skin.

Scenes that stood out were the first one which featured the policeman and his various levels in society, being bossed around and bossing others as well. The Opportunists melded into media in a scene when all the characters were on the stage, each using their personal styles to blow the fear of the yaka out of proportion. A powerful scene was when the opportunists donned carefully arranged sheets to represent the four religions of the country, and how they stood to benefit as well. The last scene was the catalyst for the whole play, delivering a twist that I thought made the play required viewing for a second time.

Overall, ‘Grease Yaka’ was bold and subtle, satirised and layered, raucous and stimulating, provoking boisterous laughter and disturbing thoughts, the combination of which is rare and very, very entertaining.

Comments from the audience

I thought it was an interesting take on the whole issue and I loved the character Pemanthi played. – Natasha

Natasha

I thought it was interesting. I loved how they brought out religious and political issues. – Shamika

It was a brilliant performance which stressed on the real society that we live in. As a past member I could see the improvements of the individual actors. My favourite was Nandun Dissanayake – Rakitha

Rakitha

I really liked the play, I think it was amazing and totally worth it. I loved the ending and I liked the portrayal of the policemen. – Amana

Amana

It was very good, society needs this. It points out not to blindly believe what others say and do and that it was cool! Nandun was favourite character. – Dilini

Dilini

I really got the fear behind the laughs vibe. Nice lighting and movement and levels. – Miriam

The drama was shockingly relevant to the current situation in Sri Lanka. I appreciate the bold decision of staging such a drama; quite timely! Portraying real life issues in such a way before our eyes put things into perspective. It depicts the exact situation people faced during the days of the "grease yaka." Stunning performance. Clearly a lot of effort has gone in. My favourite character was the policeman; such a realistic act. - Yehoshua

I thought it was an amazing performance and it was like, very controversial but also reality - Ruqaiyah

Ruqaiyah

It was an impressive production. It was clever, bold, entertaining, disturbing, well-acted, and well executed. – Amanda

By Marissa van Eyck
Pics of 'Grease Yaka' by Deshan Tennekoon