Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List

Full text release has been delayed at the author's request until July 26, 2024

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Reperforming Sarachchandralatory: A Nationalist Discourse of Postcolonial Theatre in Sri Lanka

Ranwalage, Sandamini Yashoda
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3203-2341
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami15640466703959

Abstract Details

2019, Master of Arts, Miami University, English.
Within the contemporary nationalist discourses of Sri Lankan national culture, playwright and dramatist Ediriweera Sarachchandra’s plays Maname (1956) and Sinhabahu (1961) hold unparalleled significance as quintessential Sri Lankan postcolonial theatre. This ideological aura surrounding Sarachchandra and his plays bears the insignia of anticolonial cultural production of the post-independent decolonizing processes and cultural revival. Decades after Sri Lanka’s independence from the British in 1948, and the premiers of Maname (1956) and Sinhabahu (1961), there persists a continued and unique interest in re-performing not only the plays, but also discourses that deify Sarachchandra himself. In this study, I examine how these performative and discursive re-performances of “Sarachchandralatory” archive and “spatialize” the anticolonial nationalist, historical past of Sri Lanka so as to buttress the majoritarian politics of contemporary Sinhala Buddhist nationalist discourses. I draw upon Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of “national times-spaces” to explore how performance spaces become conduits for contemporary nationalist discourses to stage and re-perform itself against the disenfranchised. To this end, I study performance spaces such as Ediriweera Sarachchcandra Open-Air Theatre and also Sri Lankan diaspora’s performance spaces as sites of struggle where the spatialization of “Sarachchandralatory” delegitimizes and absents postcolonial narratives of women and ethnic minorities.
Katie Johnson, Dr. (Committee Co-Chair)
Nalin Jayasena, Dr. (Committee Co-Chair)
Anita Mannur, Dr. (Committee Member)
103 p.
Asian American Studies; Asian Studies; Comparative Literature; Gender Studies; Performing Arts; South Asian Studies; Theater; Theater Studies

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Ranwalage, S. Y. (2019). Reperforming Sarachchandralatory: A Nationalist Discourse of Postcolonial Theatre in Sri Lanka [Master's thesis, Miami University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami15640466703959

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Ranwalage, Sandamini. Reperforming Sarachchandralatory: A Nationalist Discourse of Postcolonial Theatre in Sri Lanka . 2019. Miami University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami15640466703959.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Ranwalage, Sandamini. "Reperforming Sarachchandralatory: A Nationalist Discourse of Postcolonial Theatre in Sri Lanka ." Master's thesis, Miami University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami15640466703959

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

miami15640466703959
© 2019, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Miami University and OhioLINK.