PEOPLE WE MEET

I was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka. I am of Sinhalese background. I have three younger brothers. My parents were art lovers, they enjoy drama, music and dance. My skill as a child was painting and sculpture. When I went to high school I selected drama and theatre subjects. I started doing theatre, writing plays and directing. I also did painting. In Sri Lanka when you do a play, you have to do it by yourself. Then if someone's interested in it, other people come and do your play and tour around the country.

My first play was called My Group, for school, when I was 19. It was an educational comedy. It went very well, it was quite popular. Because it became popular, I had lots of other opportunities. We have different types of theatre, including traditional styles, which can date back 1000 years. My style is more experimental. When I left high school, I studied advanced drama diploma courses at a few institutions. I did painting at the University of Kelaniya. I started doing plays in the mainstream, a few of them won a national competition - best script, best director, best playwright a few times. There was lots of political unrest in Sri Lanka. University courses were dragging, sometimes the whole university system was shut down for years. In 1989, there was an uprising in Sri Lanka. My first full-length play, The Jury, the theme was that political unrest, which won the best play of the year in 1993. It's about a man's leg, which had been cut off and was lying in the street. It was quite common at that time. One man found the leg and he's shocked - he's looking for the owner of the leg. It's a tragic, black comedy. That play was translated into English and discussed here at the Merrigong Theatre Company. Young people revolted against the corrupt government. It was a class struggle. The government killed many people. I saw the bodies of people shot dead or burnt on the street. Most of my early plays were talking about those kind of things.

The conflict with the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) started after the British left. It's quite complex. Power was divided very unfairly. The minority were treated badly by the majority, so the Tamil movement started in the early '80s. Lots of residents were killed. In 2009 the war ended, with the LTTE defeated technically but the issue was still there. Lots of civilians lost their property, when the war ended they went back and couldn't prove it was their land. My plays were banned many times in Sri Lanka, by the government. I started teaching theatre in 1994 at the University of Kelaniya. I worked at a few universities as a lecturer.

I was given a presidential scholarship and came to Australia in 2003 with my wife Suromi and then the University of Wollongong gave me a scholarship. I think I was the first South Asian to study drama at UOW. The educational system here is totally different. I had a lot of difficulties at the beginning but the faculty helped me a lot. I directed a play in 2004 as part of my masters, The Zoo Story, which went very well. Suromi is doing a masters in special education at UOW. She runs a dance school in Sydney. In 2005 I got permanent residency. In 2007, I did two plays at Merrigong through the independent artists program, The Zoo Story and The Story of the Last Bus.

According to Australian laws, they are obliged to help people coming from other countries, illegally or whatever. If they have a policy, they should follow it or get rid of the policy. The government have to look at the human rights. On the other hand, they are having trouble finding who is a genuine refugee or not. People who come illegally on a boat usually need around at least $10,000 to pay a people smuggler. If you have $10,000 in Sri Lanka, you're quite a rich man. People who can't find $10,000 are real refugees in their own country. We talk about these things in my play A Sri Lankan Tamil Asylum Seeker's Story as Performed by Australian Actors Under the Guidance of a Sinhalese Director, at the IPAC from September 16 to 26. My co-director is David Williams and it stars Adam Booth and Anthony Gooley. It's a complex issue. My plays shock the audience and are provocative. You are also made to laugh at things that shouldn't be laughed at. You are morally and politically questioned. My website is dhananjaya.net.