ජෝන් ද සිල්වා නුර්ති නාට්ය එකතුව-02-John De Silva, the Lyric Writer
John De Silva, the Iyric Writer
The words such as ‘gita’ ‘gi’ derived from both Sanskrit and Pali the word ‘sindu’ derived from Tamil are all terms that denote the meaning of ‘song’ Although the term ‘gita’ and ‘gi’ are found in the early Sinhala li terature’ The term ‘sindu’ came to be used in the first part of the 15th century’ After a lapse of two centuries, ie, in the 17th century the term ‘sindll’ (சிந்து) takes a different form of composition’ They are a type fo composition influenced by the Tamil sindu which came to be popular during the 19th century as a result of the theatre form known as ‘nadagam’. In Nadagam the common form of dialogue was sxarce, instead the theatrical development depended upon the songs or the “sindu” Followed by the nadagam came the ‘nurthi’ form of theatre. This came to rooted as a result of the advent of parsee drama group from Bornbay, who performed during the peried 1877 to 1913, taking Hindustani theatre as the basic creative model. In this theartical formtoo one sees more songs (sindu) than the dialogue. As such one has to consider nadagam and nurthi writers as lyric writexs in the Sinhala lyrical tradition. From this point of view John De Silva (1857-1922) too could be classed as a lyric writer. He was one of the pioneer nurthi playwrights. He has composed nearly 1000 songs for his plays.
John De Silva followed the tradition of lyrical composition on the modelset by the above mentioned parsee theatre groups, popularised in the countey at the time. Then he got down viswanth Lavjee pandit from Bhownuggeri and learned the melodies that suited dramatic situations, composing lyrics to suit those situations, As a result of this deliberate attempt to fix words into melodies the poetic skill of John De Silva was undermined’
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It is a truism that John De Silva possessed a poetic talent discernible in some of his poetic pieces one comes across in his plays. Most of these were enjoyable and meaningful. The distrotion in the use of diction was lesser. But John De Silva had to face a challenge in the exercise of fixing words to already tailored melodies. As such one sees several distortions resulting in loose debased compositions. The complexity in the melodies too may have hindered this further. But one also sees instances where De Silva facing this challenge victoriously. Those compositions that are left in this direction could be well accepted as bettex sinhala lyrics. Compare with the whole host of lyrics composed during the period under discussion. The theatrical tradition that became popular via parsee theatre group, was actully a debased and degenerated one. The spectators who gather to see these were devoid of an aesthetic sense.
John De Silva Wrote more than 30 plays. Among them were works adapted from Shakespeare, Kalidasa, Bhavabhuti, Sri Harshadeva, classics drawn both from the Orient and the Occident. But the classical grace as depicted in either Shakespeare or Kalidasa in the originals were not visible in the adaptations. It is observed that the dialogue in the original too have been turned to lyrical compositions in the hands of John De Silva, transforming prose into versifications.
The Sri Lankan aesthete cannot talk of a Sinhala theatre undermining the contributions of John De Silva. But his works have not appeared in print since the lapse of about 75 years. Now his complete works have commenced appearing as a series. Another English note on John De Silva appears as an epilogue to the first publiation of this series.