Cheran's Play "Not By Our Tears" returns to Toronto

I am so fortunate to be surrounded by human beings who are creating change and communicate humanist ideals through their work.
Cheran is a friend and a client and a renowned Tamil peace activist, writer and a phenomenal human being.

Asylum Theatre Group will present the play Not By Our Tears at the Robert Gill Theatre in Toronto on 13 November 2010 in two shows at 4:30PM and 8:00PM. Written by Toronto based poet and playwright R. Cheran, directed by Dushy Gnanapragasam, and designed by Eugine Vincent, the play was originally produced in November 2009 and had its premiere in Toronto. After spending a year touring various North American cities, the play is returning to its original venue.

Thirty years of war in Sri Lanka had an enormous impact on Tamil literature and theatre. The war came to an end in May 2009. The last phase of the war - described as a "War without Witnesses"- cost more than 40,000 Tamil civilian lives and the internment of more than 300,000 Tamils in various military-run camps in the Northern Sri Lanka. Not By Our Tears is the voice of thousands of voiceless people that were interned. While chronicling the story of internment, loss and trauma, the play skillfully articulates a poetic vision of mourning and hope.

Not by our Tears belongs to a special genre in the tradition of Tamil drama, commonly known as “verse play” (paa naadakam) or “play in poetry”. The objective of such performances is to offer a visual and oral representation of poetry. Traditionally, some of the most important plays in Tamil have been verse plays. In more recent years, this tradition of theatre merged with the practice of performing poetry orally for groups of interested listeners. The confluence of the two has given to this genre a particular resonance. A verse play is both contemporary and ancient; it combines the immediacy of oral poetry with the aesthetic distance of theatrical performance. Based on the English translation of contemporary Tamil resistance poetry by three major Tamil poets, namely, R. Cheran, V.I.S. Jayapalan and Puthuvai Ratnathurai, Not by our Tears skillfully weaves memory, history and narrative to evoke a haunting and heart-wrenching image of internment, loss, nostalgia, and resistance.

Event: R. Cheran’s verse play Not By Our Tears

Date: Saturday 13 November 2010; 4:30PM and 8:00PM

Venue: Robert Gill Theatre (inside University of Toronto’s Koffler Centre, 3rd floor)

214 College Street at St George Street (enter through St. George Street)

Tickets: $20 @ Box office: 416-978-7986

Info: Asylum Theatre Group: www.asylumtheatre.ca

Robert Gill Theatre: http://www.graddrama.utoronto.ca/theatres.html