{"id":98465,"date":"2022-08-29T17:16:29","date_gmt":"2022-08-29T17:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/?p=98465"},"modified":"2022-08-29T17:16:29","modified_gmt":"2022-08-29T17:16:29","slug":"an-epic-drawn-from-real-life-the-radical-hit-play-about-a-sri-lankan-familys-journey-by-neelam-tailor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/an-epic-drawn-from-real-life-the-radical-hit-play-about-a-sri-lankan-familys-journey-by-neelam-tailor\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018An epic drawn from real life\u2019: the radical hit play about a Sri Lankan family\u2019s journey – By Neelam Tailor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018An epic drawn from real life\u2019: the radical hit play about a Sri Lankan family\u2019s journey – By Neelam Tailor<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
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Secrets and lives \u2026 Belvoir Street theatre’s Counting and Cracking, which premiered in Sydney, 2019. Photograph: Brett Boardman Photography<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Source :\u00a0theguardian<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Counting and Cracking, a multilingual tale of a family\u2019s migration to Australia, is coming to the UK. Its writer Shakthi and director Eamon Flack discuss the inspiration behind this labour of love<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cA<\/span><\/span>ustralia is a country of immigrants,\u201d says Counting and Cracking director Eamon Flack. He\u2019s not wrong: nearly 60% of the population are immigrants from Europe who began arriving about 250 years ago; Indigenous people make up just over 3%. After England, the top countries where overseas-born immigrants come from are India and China. Yet until Counting and Cracking, there hadn\u2019t been a major theatrical work in Australia about a non-white migrant family. \u201cTo put it plainly, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s been a play of this scale with 19 people who are all brown,\u201d says the play\u2019s creator S Shakthidharan, known as Shakthi.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Shakthi, an Australian storyteller with Sri Lankan heritage and Tamil ancestry, has more than made up for that with Counting and Cracking. The play, which made its\u00a0sell-out debut<\/a>\u00a0at Sydney Town Hall in 2019, spans four generations of a Sri Lankan Australian family over nearly half a century in two countries. Featuring more than 50 characters played by 16 actors in three languages, it won seven Helpmann awards (Australia\u2019s answer to the Oliviers), beating international mega-hit Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Now the production is on its way to the UK where it will take audiences in\u00a0Edinburgh<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Birmingham<\/a>\u00a0through this affecting, and surprisingly funny, multi-generational tale of love, family secrets, civil war and migration.<\/span><\/p>\n

The play first introduces us to Radha and her son, Siddhartha, living in Sydney in the mid 2000s. Radha fled\u00a0Sri Lanka<\/a>\u00a0decades before at the start of the civil war and has set up a new life. The pair\u2019s worlds are far apart. They bicker as Siddhartha struggles with his dual identity, at one point insisting: \u201cI\u2019m not Sri Lankan; I\u2019m Australian.\u201d All the while Radha, like many people forced to flee their homeland, keeps silent about her trauma and experiences. When they receive a call from Siddhartha\u2019s father, who was thought to be dead for 21 years, Radha is forced to reckon with secrets she buried, and we\u2019re taken on an epic journey through Sri Lanka in the 1950s, 70s, and 80s. Mysteries unravel, and the question of whether or not the family will reunite in Australia remains throughout.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s as much an Australian story as any,\u201d says Shakthi. The way the story resonated with people from all backgrounds came as a welcome surprise to both Shakthi and his fellow Sri Lankans in the audience. \u201cEvery night, I would have emotional discussions with Sri Lankans I talked to after the show, but then they would say: \u2018I can\u2019t believe other people are coming to this show and are interested in it.\u2019 It was kind of a radical act of belonging for us as a community,\u201d the 40-year-old playwright says.<\/span><\/p>\n