Maname Day: A Nostalgic Note On That Distant November Day 

The original Maname cast

By Liyanage Amarakeerthi –NOVEMBER 4, 2020

Prof. Liyanage Amarakeerthi

November has already arrived, and Covid 19 has restricted our movements at campus. I am in the middle of a research project related to 1956. During the months before November that year, University of Peradeniya was not under the attack of any virus but it was busy getting ready for a landmark event. Those who were in the midst of it perhaps did not know that they were creating history. They were attending to the routine activities of the campus, which was a vibrant place anyway. E.F.C. Ludowyk in English, Raplh Pieris in Sociology, Senarath Paranavithana in Archaeology, D. E. Hettiaracchi in Sinhala, K. Kanapathipillai in Tamil, K. N. Jayathilake in philosophy, among others, were renowned scholars and they were making Peradeniya a world class university. That was in the Humanities. Other faculties were equally vibrant, too.

At the faculty of Arts Dr. Sarachchandara, recently returned from a year-long stay in Japan, was   busy directing a play in the months leading to that November. Siri Gunasinghe, Gunadasa Amarasekara and some others, who were later to become major literary and intellectual figures in their generation, were eagerly helping the Doctor; Keeping him company nearly always.  

A set of brilliant young students were attending everything related to producing the play. Many of them were the members of Dram Soc, and had some previous experience of reading or producing plays with professor Ludowyk. As Dr. Ranjini Obeyesekere, recently told me, Professor Ludowyk used to read aloud plays with students at his office. “If you are free, come and let’s read a play” he would say. Students would happily oblige. Those days, English students interacted with other students. And ‘other students’ could interact with their cohorts by using English. There was no or little gap among students in different subjects. 

Inherit the Wind

Though that is not the case today, we, in producing Inherit the Wind in Sinhala, were making some bridges across the language gap. During this November, under the attack of Covid 19, wearing a face mask, I was busy at the library reading about that distant November in 56. If Corona did not hit us, we at the faculty of Arts, would have been putting the final touches on our own production of Rala Nagana Minissu, a Sinhala translation of Inherit the Wind, a brilliant American play. Priyantha Fonseka, a senior lecturer, and the department of Fine Arts were at the middle of directing the play when Corona arrived. Our cast included students from all kinds of subjects and mediums of instruction. One aim of that theater activity was to build bridges. But Corona came and burned all those brittle bridges – an additional reason to be nostalgic about that distant November in 1956. 

Years later, Indrani Wijesinghe reminisces:

“After the annual vacation, we returned to the campus, for the second academic year, There was good news awaiting us that Dr. Sarachchandra was going to produce a drama and anyone interested could meet him at an audition… Once inside the audition room I was at complete ease, when I discovered that all who had gathered there were in the same boat- Trelicia, Hemamali, Trixie, Swarna, Lional, Pastor and etc.”These students, along with so many others did not know that they were making themselves immortal by being a part of that group. 

Corona and Maname

With the arrival Corona, it has dawned on us that universities are not universities without students. And reading about the history that group of students who were together producing history, I wanted to pay my tribute them once again for being part of Maname, the play. According many who remember that day, November 3rd of that year, a miracle happened on stage. A few days later Regi Siriwardena was to announce the world through Ceylon Daily News that Sinhala theater has produced a masterpiece and, along with that, a great playwright. Though he had written some favorable reviews of Pabavati, (directed by J.D. Dhirasekara), Siriwardena was amazed by the spectacle Maname created on stage in Colombo. On that November 3rd, Trilicia Abeyrathne was the princess Maname. In the second show in Kandy, Hemamali Gunasekara played the princess. Professor H. L. Seneviratne, who was also a student member of the crew, recalls Hemamali as a unique Maname-Princess. Hemamali herself tells us how she entered the world of Maname in that historic year, 1956:

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