Girandurukotte, deep in the Mahaweli country, would hardly seem the probable venue to play host to France’s great 17th Century playwright Moliere…but then that’s what the French Embassy discovered, much to its delight.
The enterprising theatre and film personality Sathischandra Edirisinghe, we heard, was working with the sons and daughters of the farmers of Mahaweli System “C”. At that time Sathis was the Manager of Cultural Programmes of the Mahaweli Authority of Sri Lanka.
He was conducting a series of workshops and among other plays had also chosen Moliere’s Tartuffe (The Imposter). Sathis adapted it, localised it, and played it in Sinhala as Thanha Aasha.
Always quick to hunt for and pounce on Franco-Sri Lankan ties, cultural and otherwise, Bonsoir packed its camera and lights and cables … and with the team, as usual, squeezed into the French Embassy’s Peugeot, we took off to Girandurukotte. We didn’t know what lay in store for us but we were certainly ready for adventure. 
Molière wrote Tartuffe in 1664. Its first performance was the same year as the fêtes held at Versailles. King Louis XIV almost immediately censored the play, probably due to the influence of the archbishop of Paris, who was the King’s confessor and had been his tutor.
As a result of Molière’s play, contemporary French and English both use the word “tartuffe” to designate a hypocrite who ostensibly and exaggeratedly feigns virtue, especially religious virtue. The entire play is written in 1,962 twelve-syllable lines (alexandrines) of rhyming couplets. 
Although the first ever film version of the play was Herr Tartuff in 1926, it was more than half a century later in 1984 that the French film version was done with legendary actor Gerard Depardieu directing it and starring in the title role.
It was a long and tiring drive as Colombo’s concrete jungle soon gave way to rural calm. We reached Girandurukotte exhausted (“c-r-e-v-é” as the French would say with a shrug of the shoulders) where we were met by Sathis and team and treated to simple yet lavish Mahaweli hospitality.
The rice was red, the leaves just plucked and crisp from the garden, the vegetables fresh from the earth and the fish seemed as if they had jumped straight from the “wewa” (lake) into the clay cooking pot.
This was somewhere in the early 1990s. We were amazed by the ingeniousness and resourcefulness of these simple rural people. The “theatre” was a simple rectangular structure. The floor was hard beaten earth. The stage was a raised mound of earth with a small two-foot high retaining wall. The lights were extremely basic. “Off Stage” was a small space which could barely accommodate a few people. It was in this space that Moliere was to premier in rural Sri Lanka.
The big day arrived. We set up our equipment and got into place. We dared not switch on our several 1000w lights and set the trip switch into multiple convulsions. So we settled for shooting under natural lights. The effect was magical to say the least.
The curtains parted and there they were on stage. Orgon (the head of the house), Tartuffe (his house guest who is a pious fraud), Elmire (Orgon’s wife and object of Tartuffe’s lust) and the other greater and lesser characters. They all had Sri Lankan names, they wore Sri Lankan costumes and they spoke in Sinhala.
It was an enjoyable performance. Audiences in that part of the world aren’t used to standing ovations, but the shouts and whistles at the curtain call amounted to the same effect. Audience appreciation was +++. Now in retrospect I realise that Sathis had indeed done wonders with this project.