by Manusha Lakshan
“That the man who wrote these plays wasn’t mentioned in the State Drama Advisory Board’s ‘Playwrights of the ‘60s baffles me even today.” (Sunil Mihindukula)
Sunil Mihindukula was referring to Sumana Aloka Bandara. When my friend Chathura Pradeep broke the news to me of Bandara’s passing away last Monday, I first wondered how many people, particularly young people, would have heard of his name. In the heady years of Sinhala theatre, in the early 1960s, Bandara lived and breathed theatre. If his works aren’t as remembered today as they ought to be, they were immensely popular then. His sole achievement, for those who have the foggiest notion of what he did, seems to have been introducing Malini Fonseka to the stage. Yet this isn’t all he did.