Checkpoint
Three Strangely Normal Plays
Directed by
Ruwanthie de Chickera
Written by
Dhanjaya Karunaratne (Last Bus eke Kathawa)
Tara Kumarasinghe – (24 Hour Store)
Devised by various casts - (Forum Theatre)
When CHECKPOINT – Three Strangely Normal Plays was first performed by Stages Theatre Group in Colombo in 2001, checkpoints were as common as night boutiques in the city. Like the name of the production, the content too was extremely relevant to Colombo theatre goers at the time and it was widely acknowledged as a ground-breaking piece of Sri Lankan theatre.
Following the immense success of the production, Stages has received many requests to re-run the play.
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‘CHECKPOINT – Three Strangely Normal Plays’, as its name implies, is a compilation of three pieces of theatre that have been chosen because they each provide intriguing reality checks into the world around us. Like all good theatre, these plays expose the strangeness of our normal lives, a strangeness that is at the same time funny and disturbing.
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CHECKPOINT – Three Strangely Normal Plays was first produced in Sri Lanka in July 2001. It enjoyed two highly successful sell-out runs at the British Council.
In November 2005, the production – sporting a new cast - was toured in India as part of two separate theatre festivals; the WIPSA Festival of South Asian Theatre which was toured in the cities of Lucknow, Varanasi and Bubhaneshwar; and the Bahuroopi National Theatre Festival in Mysore. The troupe received critical acclaim for its performances in each of these cities. The Forum Theatre segment of the play received special mention, as this provided a completely new theatrical experience for the audiences.
CHECKPOINT – Three Strangely Normal Plays was next revived, revamped and performed in Sri Lanka in September 2006, as the maiden performance in the British School Auditorium. Once again, it was a sell out success.
In 2007, CHECKPOINT was invited again to India on two separate occasions. First, as part of the Bharat Rang Mahaotsav – the highly acclaimed National School of Drama annual theatre festival. For the 2007 festival, the National School of Drama invited Stages to perform CHECKPOINT, not only in Delhi, but in Calcutta too, as part of the Festival’s parallel satellite festival.
The second Indian festival CHECKPOINT was performed at was at the the ‘MetroFest’ international theatre festival organised by ‘The Hindu’ (the newspaper), in Chennai, August, 2007.
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Director
Ruwanthie de ChickeraWriters
Dhanjaya Karunaratne (Last Bus eke Kathawa)
Tara Kumarasinghe – (24 Hour Store)
