Radicalising Shakespeare: Staging the Sri Lankan Juliet in Julietge Bhumikawa

K. C. P. Warnapala

doi:10.18778/2083-8530.29.04

Authors

K. C. P. Warnapala University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2699-4918

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-8530.29.04

Keywords:

Sri Lankan film, gender, Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, “other woman”

Abstract

Through an analysis of the Sri Lankan film, Julietge Bhumikawa (1998) (Illusions of Juliet), I argue that the film radicalizes Shakespeare-inspired film through providing a bold site of enunciation to the character of Juliet. While the Sri Lankan Juliet is cast as mistress, interrogating discourses of purity surrounding not only the original source text—Romeo and Juliet—but the contemporary Sri Lankan society as well, Julietge Bhumikawa reconfigures female gender ideologies by unraveling the nexus between female madness and patriarchal culture.

Author Biography

K. C. P. Warnapala, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka

Kanchanakesi Warnapala graduated with honours from the Department of English, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka and subsequently obtained her Master’s Degree in English and Doctorate in English from Michigan State University, USA. She is at present a Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka and has published her academic research in journals such as Interventions, Early Popular Visual Culture, the European Journal of Life Writing, and South Asian Popular Culture.

References

Appelbaum, Robert. “‘Standing to the Wall:’ The Pressures of Masculinity in Romeo and Juliet.” Shakespeare Quarterly 48.3 (1997): 251-272. https://doi.org/10.2307/2871016. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2871016

Colley, Linda. “Shakespeare and the Limits of National Culture,” Lecture, Hayes Robinson Lecture Series No. 2, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey. 3 March 1998.

De Mel, Vasana. “‘Ehkee Maara Baduwakne’ (Isn’t she a Hot Item?): Contradictions and Controversy Facing Sri Lankan Women in Chorus Baila and Sinhala Pop Music.” World of Music 46.3: 121-144.

Desai, Jagriti V. Romeo and Juliet as a Tragedy of Fate and Character. Oklahoma State University, 1968. https://hdl.handle.net/11244/26146. Accessed 22 May 2023.

Dewaraja, Lorna S. “The Position of Women in Buddhism.” Access to Insight (Legacy Edition), 30 November 2013. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/dewaraja/wheel280.html. Accessed 2 April 2022

Edwin, Ariyadasa. “The History of Sinhala Cinema.” Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media 37 (1989): 19-27.

Flaumenhaft, Mera J. “Romeo and Juliet for Grownups.” The Review of Politics 79.4 (2017): 545-563. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26564776. Accessed 22 May 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034670517000572

Griffin, Victoria. The Mistress: Histories, Myths and Interpretations of the Other Woman. London: Bloomsbury, 1999.

Grünhagen, Céline. “The Female Body in Early Buddhist Literature.” Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 23 (2011): 100-114. DOI: https://doi.org/10.30674/scripta.67383

Gunawardana, Ariyasena J. “Sri Lankan Cinema: The Present and Future Scenario.” Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media 37 (1989): 103-109.

Jackson, Rosemary. Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion. London, New York: Methuen, 1981. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203328446

Jayamanne, Laleen. Towards Cinema and its Double: Cross Cultural Mimesis. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001.

Julietge Bhumikawa. Dir. Jackson Anthony. Film. Gamini Nanayakkara, 1998.

Nevo, Ruth. “Tragic Form in Romeo and Juliet.” Studies in English Literature, 1500- 1900 9.2 (1969): 241-258. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/449778

Ramachandran, Naman. “Sri Lankan Cinema in Crisis: It’s Beyond Anyone’s Comprehension How Much of the Industry Will Survive.” https://variety.com/2022/film/global/sri-lanka-economic-crisis-film-tv-industry-1235322865. Accessed 11 April 2022.

Ratnavibhushana, Ashley. “Cinema and the State.” Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media 37 (1989): 28-32.

Roberts, Sasha. Romeo and Juliet. Liverpool University Press, 1998. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv5qdgff.

Roberts, Sasha. William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet. London: Northcote House Publishers Limited, 1998. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv5qdgff

Rutter, Carol Chillington. “Looking at Shakespeare’s Women on Film.” The Cambridge Companion to Women on Film. Ed. Russell Jackson. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2000. 241-261. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521630231.015

Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. Eds. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstein. Simon and Schuster, 2011.

Sirimanne, Chand R. “Buddhism and Women-The Dhamma Has No Gender.” Journal of International Women’s Studies 18.1 (2016): 273-292. https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol18/iss1/17. Accessed 22 May 2023.

Sizer, Susan. Stigmas of the Tamil Stage: An Ethnography of Special Drama Artists in South India. Illinois: Duke University Press, 2005. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822386193

Snowden, Kim. Deconstructing the Other Woman: Evelyn Lau and the Feminist Adulterer. The University of British Columbia. 2001. (thesis)

Subathini, Ramesh and Mitali P. Wong. Sri Lankans’ Views on English in the Colonial and Post-Colonial Eras. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020.

Truchet, Sybil. “Madness and Folly and the Extraordinary Reason of Love in Romeo and Juliet.” Actes des congrès de la Société française Shakespeare [Online] 7 (1989), Online since 01 January 2007. http://journals.openedition.org/shakespeare/1308. Accessed 11 April 2022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/shakespeare.1308

Willemijn Wuister. Colonial Education: A Case Study of Education in Late-Colonial Ceylon from the 1930s until Independence. Universiteit Leiden, 2018.