The Jungle and the Sea, follow-up to Counting and Cracking, uses theatre as a safe space to discuss Sri Lankan civil war – By Hannah Reich and Kim Jirik Source : abc When S. Shakthidharan first told his mum that he wanted to look into their family history, she quickly shut him down, telling him: “That is a very stupid idea.” She then refused to talk to him about it again. Anandavalli, a Tamil dancer, fled Sri Lanka in 1983 at the outbreak of the civil war, settling with her family in Western Sydney. It was 2008 and, faced with a wall of silence from his mum, Shakthidharan (also known as Shakthi) secretly turned to a grand-aunt in London. “She was the first person in my family to open up to me and it became a waterfall of information. I started learning about all these things that I’d never known. It ...

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THE JUNGLE AND THE SEA AT BELVOIR ST THEATRE View the rehersal photos in the video below Please view additional photos of Rehearsal photos on eLanka FB S.Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack, the award-winning creative powerhouses behind Counting and Cracking, return with The Jungle and the Sea, showing from 12 November 2022 to 18 December 2022 at the Belvoir Street Theatre. The Jungle and the Sea takes the classical stories of the Mahabharatha and Antigone, and builds a new epic bringing to the forefront decades of untold histories of the Sri Lankan civil war. Themes that all Sri Lankans have a connection to – surviving loss, rebuilding lives and discovering what a reimagined future can bring. The Jungle and the Sea is a companion piece to Belvoir’s critically acclaimed Counting and Cracking, following the production’s successful tour to Edinburgh and Birmingham in August 2022. It is rare to see a nuanced ...

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    COUNTING AND CRACKING WINS AUSTRALIA’S RICHEST LITERARY AWARD Source: LimeLight Shakthidharan’s Counting and Cracking, an epic play encompassing four generations of a Sri Lankan family, has received Australia’s richest literary award, the $100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature, at this year’s Victorian Premier’s Literary Award. Shared with associate writer Eamon Flack, who also directed the acclaimed production for Belvoir and Co-Curious, the pair also took home the $25,000 Prize for Drama. It marks only the second time a play has received both awards after Leah Purcell’s double win in 2017 for The Drover’s Wife. S. Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack. Photograph © Ken Leanfore “Counting and Cracking is a play of great scope and sweep – taking place as it does over several international locations and time periods, folding in a nation’s rawest wounds and crises – that also manages to speak intimately of the ties that bind people within and between cultures. Highly ...

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  Counting & Cracking- A cracker of a play – By Raj Gonsalkorale   Counting and Cracking made through ongoing collaboration between Belvoir and Co-Curious, and S. Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack – across writing, producing and direction was indeed a cracker of a play. It was brilliantly acted, tightly and yet meaningfully directed, and above all, the pathos that befell Sri Lanka in July 1983 depicted as the tragedy it was for the entire country. Politically speaking, the greatest tragedy was the active complicity of the then government in that dark episode. Many may not recall that the President and head of the government and head of the cabinet did not appear on TV to appeal for calm for nearly a week after the outbreak of violence, that many within the Police and Armed forces had been given orders to virtually look away when Tamil shops and homes were being burnt and human ...

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