To me it was sad
to hear of two Old Persean’s dying
within two weeks of each other, and I have written in my previous blog post
about Sir David Tang the inscrutable raconteur, highly networked individual,
who owned China Tang Restaurant in the Dorchester, who was my dorm mate a few
years older than me, who died on 29th August.
From my very
first day at the Perse, I was informed in NO uncertain terms of the Old Persean
who won a scholarship to the Perse, Peter Hall the Theater Director and the
Founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company, as possibly the greatest product of
the Perse School in Cambridge of our times.
My English
teacher or so I was told, had ONLY given Peter Hall an A in his class, over a
30 year career of being the head of English at the Perse. So that must have
meant something, someone quite special.
I have shown the
links to the various articles below and the last one in the Daily Mail is fully
worth reading if the reader wishes to choose one.
However what I
remember of him was his direction of the 1974Classic film Ackenfield, http://www.akenfield.com/ with the cast from the village, based on the (true stories with some name
changes) book by Ronald Blythe, who was also from East Anglia describing the
lives and history of those there. http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2015/10/ronald_blythe_s_1969_book_about_his_hometown_akenfield_still_resonates_in.html
of a travelogue of East Anglia, where my
school was and from where Peter Hall emerged as a son of a Station Master of
modest means.
His sheer output
of work in all these forms of the performing arts, is a testament to his prodigious
work ethic and indefatigable spirit, and brilliance a word because I fail to
find a more suitable word to describe this genius. I am really glad that the
Perse was able to sow the seeds of this Brilliance that, by giving him a scholarship
and then it extended to Cambridge University that further developed his talent.
His four
marriages meant that he was too exuberant a person for one wife only, and his
actress daughter Rebecca Hall is also a testament to one child he leaves
behind, in whom some of his talents have rubbed off.
The world is a
loser by his demise but his dementia in latter years meant he has been out of
the public eye for many years. Oh one only wishes one had just an iota of his brilliance with
all the faults as staging a play, acting in one, or directing one with a genius
mind, something only those who were able to appreciate his productions, and act
under his direction in the National Theater and elsewhere know, and miss out
on.
A person who is
interested in the British Theatre cannot fail to appreciate the contribution
that Peter Hall has made to it, and new ideas he has brought to bring theatre
to the masses. After all he insisted that the State Funds some of these
projects and institutions, so that this talent both of the people to perform
and others to enjoy this culture can be preserved, and enjoyed by the masses to
improve our quality of life.
When times are
hard sometimes we receive a lot of pleasure from the performing arts, music,
dance and theater and the visual and audio bliss to the senses is NOT something
money can buy.
In this context
I wish we in Sri Lanka today, are able to get our people in all areas involved in
the appreciation of the performing arts, but contributing to its resurgence as
the talent is there, but not being harnessed to the pleasure of all due to
short term goals of petty and selfish people who rule over us, who want to keep
out citizens enslaved to their own ideas that are frankly BANKRUPT.
I don’t know how
many people can appreciate why I noted this post, as it is to show what a man
can do to change he course of history, and we in Sri Lanka desperately yearn
for prodigious talent to emulate the likes of Amaradeva and others of his ilk,
to maintain our culture, and bring the pleasure therefrom to the masses who are
now merely sunk in musical shows of lesser talent, with no long term goal of
reclaiming our heritage despite the pious words of the pompous~
