by Ana Pararajasingham
Since its debut in 2019 at the Sydney Town Hall, Counting and Cracking is back, this time at Carriageworks. Except for some minor changes, the play remains as “warm and witty” as it was then described. One may add that it is also an incredibly authentic portrayal of events as experienced by a Tamil family over several decades, and across four generations.
Not surprisingly, the play has won numerous awards including the NSW Premier’s Literary Award; the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award; and the 2019 Helpmann Awards for Best Play, Best New Australian Work; Best Sound Design, and Best Scenic Design, among many others.
The events take place in two countries, Sri Lanka and Australia.
The patriarch of the family is Manickavasagar, (played by Prakash Belwadi, winner of the 2019 Best Male Actor in a Play for his role in ‘Counting and Cracking’ in its previous incarnation) is aptly called “Appah” (Dad in Tamil) throughout the play. Manickavasagar is loosely based on C Suntharalingam, a Tamil politician who, despite political differences had abiding personal relationships with the Sinhala political elite. The play takes its title from a letter written to Sri Lanka’s Deputy Prime Minister of the day, in which the Tamil politician proclaimed that beyond a point, should an undemocratic act be undertaken in the guise of democracy, those affected have the right to use whatever weapon to counter it arguing that “Democracy means the counting of heads within certain bounds and cracking of heads beyond those bounds”
The play opens with the great-grandson of Manickavasagar, Siddhartha (played by Shiv Paleka) in Sydney, participating in a Hindu ritual as part of his grandmother’s funeral rites. Having anglicized his name to Sid, Siddhartha, the “Sydneysider from Pendle Hill’, is equally unfamiliar with the ancient ritual as his mother tongue, Tamil. When directed by a Hindu Priest (played by Gandhi Macintyre), he needs to rely on his mother’s translation to understand instructions. The extent of the wholesale uprooting of Sri Lankan Tamils who have become a global diaspora, is evident in that the Hindu Priest, who belongs to Siddhartha’s great-grandfather’s generation is also a new immigrant!
The three-hour-long play, before culminating in ‘Black July’—the event that drove tens of thousands of Sri Lanka’s Tamils to all four corners of the globe—explores many of life’s predicaments. One such predicament comes to the fore as Siddhartha and his girlfriend, an Indigenous Australian, Lilly (played by Abbie-Lee Lewis), recall their own lives, the trajectory of which neither they nor their parents had control. This linking of migrant multicultural Australia with Indigenous Australia is telling; while such interactions are sadly rare, we are perhaps heading in a direction that facilitates the intertwining of Australia’s three cultural histories: Indigenous, multicultural, and mainstream. Another predicament is that of the asylum seeker, driven by desperate circumstances to embark on dangerous journeys. This is well portrayed by Antonythasan Jesuthasan in his role as Thiru, Radha’s husband, who is thought to have died after two decades in a Sri Lankan prison. A younger Thiru, who disappears amid ‘Black July,’ is played by Kaivalya Suvarna. This leads to yet another predicament, this one faced by Radha, who, unsure whether her husband is alive or dead, is unable to settle down in her new country.
Thiru is helped by Hasanga, a Sinhalese journalist played by Sukhabir Singh Walia, who is a rare individual whose pursuit of the truth gets him killed by the government. Three days before his murder, Hasanga predicts his own death in an article that begins with the sentence, “No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces—and, in Sri Lanka, journalism.” The reading of extracts from the article just as his death is revealed is a poignant moment in the play. The character of Hasa, based on the real-life journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge who was killed by the government, makes the reading all the more poignant.
Manickavasagar’s granddaughter and Siddhartha’s mother, Radha, is played by Nadie Kammallaweera and Radhika Mudaliyar. Radha, having fled Sri Lanka while pregnant with Siddhartha, is one of the main characters, a strong woman, beautifully brought to life by both actors. Although no single character can be identified as the main character, Radha comes close to such a depiction as the plot revolves around her reluctance to come to terms with her displacement.
Perhaps the most confronting, profound, and heartbreaking scene is played out in Act 3, depicting Sri Lanka’s anti-Tamil pogrom, now commonly dubbed ‘Black July.’ The influential Manickavasagar, with access to the most powerful in the land, finds that he can do little to stop the marauding mobs hunting down Tamils. What transpires is that the attacks are not a spontaneous reaction to Sinhala soldiers killed by Tamil rebels, as claimed by the Sri Lankan regime, but something more sinister—a state-orchestrated, politically motivated event.
Appa, now convinced of the state’s role, realizes that it is time for the Tamils to stand up for themselves, as no help is coming from outside. This interpretation dovetails with that of another Tamil playwright, Ernest Macintyre (brother of the aforementioned Gandhi), in Rasanayagam’s Last Riot, staged at the Belvoir Theatre thirty-four years ago in 1990. Macintyre’s play also suggests that ‘Black July’ was indeed the last riot and that the conflict had now morphed into a full-scale war, as young Tamils, unable or disinclined to flee, begin to resist.
The humour and wit displayed throughout the play provide light relief for the audience faced with Sri Lanka’s violent-laden history. Much of the humour comes from Rodney Afif in his role as the Turkish-born air conditioning installation man, Ismet, who takes a shine to Radha.
A cast of sixteen actors from six countries plays roles primarily speaking in Tamil and Sinhalese interlaced with English. Tamil and Sinhalese dialogues are immediately translated by actors. From time to time, one finds actors delivering their lines not from the stage but from amidst the audience. As a result, the multilingual performance moves seamlessly, and the largely English-speaking audience has no difficulty keeping pace as the story unfolds. Indeed, ‘Counting and Cracking’ is a resounding testimony to the power of theatre, allowing the audience to fully immerse themselves in a complex story.
The Carnatic music, performed by musicians Kranthi Kiran Mudigonda (violin), Janakan Suthanthiraraj (mradangam), and Venketesh Sritharan (flute), provides an excellent backdrop as the play unfolds across three acts in just over three hours.