I repeat that a work of art must have only a form. It is not correct to evaluate literature or cinema or any other art according to its content. The form, for me, itself is the content. However, I discuss this point to some extent in the last column. Considering only the content of a work of art obscure not only its politics but also its beauty or rather its artistic use.
On the other hand, inability to understand its theoretical approach in reading the work of arts in question reveals the philosophical poverty of the critic.
The aim of this writing is Asoka Handagama’s latest play, Death in an Antique Shop. It is true that my approach to that play is tied to the aforementioned hypothesis. But the differences in the contemporary artist as well as in the art must be discussed first.
There it re-reads the binary opposition between hegemony and autonomy. Simply put, art and the artist have shifted from hegemony to autonomy. The collective experience of the past artist has become a personal experience for the contemporary artist.
The freedom of choice that artists have in the West is a mode of capitalism. Despite the collectiveness of the early artist, with the development of capitalism, autonomy overtook hegemony. That is, artists do what they want.
Playwrights
The playwrights who preceded Handagama (such as Henry Jayasena, Sugathapala de Silva, Ranjith Dharamkeerthi) performed their plays under an umbrella of any organisation. Examples are “Ape Kattiya”, Kala Pela and Nalu Kela. Sugathapala de Silva used to refer to his book as the work of Ape Kattiya.
Most of them were Marxists. Criticising Trotsky in front of Sugath is an act that irritates him. Therefore, the artist did not have the wild freedom to do whatever he wanted. Art criticism is not a purposeless wanderlust but a theoretical approach. Sucharitha Gamlath was a theorist who believed that the purpose of art was to realise reality. Today, as well as the creation of works of art, the enjoyment of them has shifted to the individual.
As I said above, the work of a past artist has been a collective experience. The artist as well as the critic is doing what they want today. No one needs a theory about art. It does not matter to the artist who is talking about his play. Not only Handagama but today artists create works of art along with selling. Joseph’s Antique Shop symbolically expresses this social reading. Because of this, the artist, the critic and the audience are all sold out in the theater.
Everyone was talking about Handagama’s play. It had become so symptomatic that everybody thought that it is inappropriate not to speak about this drama. It is true that the performance of the play was temporarily interrupted because of Kovid 19. However, Handagama was thus attracted to a society with people whose character was symptomatic. Everyone tried to identify with Handagama. This is the context in which this reading of Death in the Antique Shop is taken placeed.
Reviews
After reading reviews of Handagama’s play (most of which were posted on social media) I realised that Handagama had either silenced (wordless) them (therefore, the shock of watching the play was expressed in obscene words) or it is tempting to spend endless words in vain. According to some, death in an antique shop is a re-enactment of the outdated concept of Oedipus. Any of these ideas ended up with a dark, apolitical conclusion that psychoanalysis was obsolete.
No one knows that we have no escape from Oedipus. It jumps out of a myth and has been haunting us for thousands of years. The Oedipus complex is not a story of love or hate between children and parents. According to Juan- David Nasio, it is a story about sex Nasio expresses it as follows:
Thus, Oedipus is an obsession that converts obscene desire into recognition as a socialized desire. Our desire can never be satisfied.
The uncertainty for many critics of Handagama’s play was that (according to them) there was a barrier like Oedipus to having enjoyment. What really happens is that the barrier is created by us.
They are depoliticised by themselves. The politics of the play lies in its formal direction. At this stage, I procrastinate this reading of Psychoanalytic Art Criticism in association with Handagama’s play.
To be continued