Kalu Skin, Kalu Masks: Performing Blackness in Simon Nawagattegama’s Sudu Saha Kalu (1979)

Kalu Skin, Kalu Masks1: Performing Blackness in Simon Nawagattegama’s Sudu Saha Kalu (1979) Marlon Ariyasinghe (bio) In March 2019, I was among the audience for a performance of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, directed by Ushan Perera and translated into Sinhala as Maya Bandana by Gamini Wiyangoda at the Prof. Ediriweera Sarachchandra Theatre (fondly known as the Wala) in Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. One particular aspect of the performance that struck me was the portrayal of the character Tituba, an enslaved woman from Barbados owned by Reverend Parris. Tituba’s face was painted black in the production, reminiscent of Black minstrelsy performances. During the post-production discussion, I inquired from the director about the rationale for selecting the particular makeup used for Tituba’s character. He seemed confused by the question, gave me an evasive answer, and stated whether my question was relevant to present-day Sri Lanka. I inferred from his response that he believed that the portrayal of Tituba in black makeup was not insensitive because Sri Lanka does not have the same racial dynamics of Black and white. The director may not have intended for Tituba’s Blackface makeup to be a stereotypical caricature, yet, as argued by Ayanna Thompson, a scholar of race and performance, “intentionality is always subject to interpretation in production.”2 Thomson further posits the fluidity of intention in pre- and post-performance: “Even artists themselves revisit their own conceptions of their intentions after performing something in front of an audience.”3 Therefore, despite what the director intended, it is ineluctable that Tituba’s portrayal in black makeup evokes racialized caricatures of Blackness rooted in the history of minstrelsy shows. The early nineteenth-century minstrel shows represented a significant component of American pop culture within the United States. The shows, which depicted Black American lives and the life of the enslaved, were in the form of skits and songs by white singers, dancers, comedians, and performers in black makeup that caricatured Black physiological stereotypes: large mouths, lips, and eyes, woolly hair, and coal-black skin. As stated in Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (2013), the minstrelsy theatrical practice originated in “the urban north, in which white men caricatured blacks for sport and profit.”4 [End Page 11] The minstrel shows portrayed enslaved Blacks as passive and happy. The distortion and ridicule of speech, mannerisms, color, and caricature of general comportment reinforced whiteness and white comportment as the norm. As Catherine Cole observes, the use of Blackface became a signifier for African American culture. The American minstrel show’s racism lay in the fact that Blackness was equated with “ignorance, disorder, and the grotesque.”5 Thus, the caricaturing of Black physiological aspects through Blackface makeup reinforced the negative portrayal of African American culture and perpetuated racial stereotypes that have endured to this day. In her work, Blackface (2021), Ayanna Thompson stipulates that Blackface is “the application of any prosthetic—makeup, soot, burnt cork, minerals, masks, etc.—to imitate the complexion of another race.”6 There is also a distinction between brownface, which is used to impersonate Indian, Middle Eastern, or Hispanic races. The aforementioned translated adaptation of The Crucible, is just one of many productions in Sri Lankan theatre to use Blackface and Brownface. Sudu Saha Kalu (White and Black), first performed in 1979, by playwright and novelist Simon Nawagattegama is an unpublished, lesser-critiqued work compared to his other notable works such as the play Suba Saha Yasa (1974), films Suddilage Kathawa (1984) and Seilama (1994), and his acclaimed work of fiction Sansaranyaye Dadayakkaraya (1981). In 2015, following the playwright’s passing, Sudu Saha Kalu was restaged by veteran actor and director Sriyantha Mendis, producer Jude Srimal, and a cast of well-known theatre actors in Sri Lanka. The play revolves around the sociopolitical backdrop of the South African Border War, also known as the Namibian War of Independence. Nawagattegama’s original work was inspired by accounts he heard from a Namibian acquaintance he met while on tour. While exploring the racial tensions between whites and Blacks during the conflict, Nawagattegama’s play features makeup on Black characters and white makeup on the white protagonist. This article...