Ruwanthie’s rehearsal

As the originator of the Dear Children, Sincerely (DCS) project, Ruwanthie had indicated that for her contribution to the residency performance, she wished to work on a piece that offered something different to the previous incarnation of the replay of elders’ testimonies. During the week residency, Ruwanthie completed a new play, Girls at Checkpoints, which was scripted with input from the actors in the piece, Piumi Wijesundara, Ewout D’Hoore and Ashling O’Shea, a recent University of Essex drama graduate, and of Sri Lankan descent. In this new work, the idea of legacy is seen through the prism of young women, where three stories of abuse are intertwined to show the patterns and structural permissions of sexual violence in Sri Lanka.

Here we see Ruwanthie extending her previous work on DCS, using biographical stories to reveal the political and social landscape, but making work here for a duo of young female performers. Ashling reported finding the process ‘inspirational’, and certainly Ruwanthie is an exacting and discriminating director, but also one that offered great motivation, precise guidance and creative encouragement to the team working on the piece.