Performance Portfolio
My creative work is guided by the foundation of social justice. At the center of my approach to theater is the exploration of systematized psychophysical acts and building cohesion between text, image, speech, body and performance as collective. I have over 18 years of experience as a theater practitioner in Sri Lanka, Switzerland and USA. Through my work and collaborations, I often engage with Sri Lanka’s socio-political, historical and economic concerns and focus on notions such as identity, gender, migrancy and embodiment.
My work is also informed by Angam Mechanics, an experimental actor-training methodology founded on the principles of stillness, corporeality, and bodymind presence from Angampora, a Sri Lankan martial arts.
Exorcism - Marlon Ariyasinghe. Nitery Theater, Stanford, CA. February 13-15, 2025.
Making of Exorcism
Directing Credits (selected)
Exorcism is a theatrical performance that incorporates elements of Sri Lankan folklore, colonial history, and personal identity crises to explore the broader themes of decolonization, repatriation, and cultural restoration. Set in a contemporary U.S. museum, the narrative follows Amaya, a Sri Lankan-American young woman, and Riri Yaka Jr., a mythical demon figure from Sri Lankan folklore, as they seek to reclaim stolen cultural artifacts from the museum. The production integrates traditional Sri Lankan performance forms – Kōlam (masked dance drama) and Rūkada (puppetry) – with a psychophysical actor training methodology based on Angam Mechanics, which is rooted in Sri Lankan martial arts.
The Clean House - Sarah Ruhl. December 2015 Geneva, Switzerland.
The Clean House - Trailer
The production was the culmination of a four-month workshop with the Emmet Theatre company. The play was performed for at “Version Originale II,” in La Fête du Théâtre 30 October, 2015. The main performance was at Unimail, Geneva, from 16-19 December 2015. The play is based on Matilde, a young Brazilian maid who hates cleaning. She wants to be a comedian and dreams of coming up with the perfect joke. A joke that is so funny, it could kill.
Antigonick - Anne Carson. 2014-2015. Geneva, Switzerland.
Antigonick - Trailer
The production incorporated Carson’s Antigonick and several extracts from Carson’s NOX (2010), written as an epitaph to her estranged brother, who died in 2000. The story bears an eerie resemblance to the story of Antigone. NOX is also an exercise in translation; Carson translates “Catullus 101” from Latin to English. I attempted to recreate this by reciting the Catullan elegy in Latin, English, and French Sign Language, highlighting the different layers of translation within the text. Moreover, the stage/acting space was left completely bare. The conflicts of the play and Antigone’s monologues take place within a square – created by a lighting effect and placed centre stage. It represented Antigone’s burial chamber and the limits of ‘man-made’ power. The light which came from above represented divine justice. Hence, the traverse stage setting created the effect of being inside the tomb of Antigone; the audience witnessing her death by suicide and the downfall of Kreon, intimately close, almost becoming a part of the performance.
Performances:
October 2014: “Version Originale,” La Fête du Théâtre.
December 2014 and May 2015: Produced by Activités culturelles, Université de Genève.
May 2015: Festival d'Ateliers-Théâtre at Théâtre La Comédie.
Rizana - Marlon Ariyasinghe. 2013. Sri Lanka.
The play Rizana was inspired by actual events surrounding Rizana Nafeek’s execution in Saudi Arabia and was written and produced in 2013. It began as a poem that was written by the author at the time of her execution which was later developed into a play. The play is about migrant labor, exploitation of children, and poverty. The play is also about the exploitation of labor rules and rights of migrant workers in the Middle East and the failure of the Sri Lankan foreign policy. It was performed 1 April, 2013.
What Remains? consists of four theatrical vignettes, rooted in the tradition of dramatic poetry, that give an account of the planetary crisis from the perspective of four small beings: ants, frogs, snails, centipedes. Each scene is the accumulation of smallness, which is the red thread that unites them. This show is a question. Rather than to have solutions, this piece is a porous and open question that asks more questions about traces (remains) to come, about the ecological crisis, and about the complex condition that humans and nonhumans experience as part of the capitalist modernity that haunts the past, future, and present, in the here and now.
What Remains? - dir. eli melgar. February 13-15 2025.
Acting Credits
The play Rizana was inspired by actual events surrounding Rizana Nafeek’s execution in Saudi Arabia and was written and produced in 2013. It began as a poem that was written by the author at the time of her execution which was later developed into a play. The play is about migrant labor, exploitation of children, and poverty. The play is also about the exploitation of labor rules and rights of migrant workers in the Middle East and the failure of the Sri Lankan foreign policy. It was performed 1 April, 2013.
Strangers in the Night - dir. Tracy Holsinger. 2022-2023. Sri Lanka.
Curtain call
An unconventional Much Ado About Nothing directed by Shakespeare expert Ben Crystal, using original Elizabethan rehearsal methods. Actors rehearsed individually with the director before assembling just ten days pre-opening to tackle the play’s razor-sharp banter and its themes of rumor, deception, and love.
Much Ado About Nothing - dir. Ben Crystal. 11–15 November 2014.
Role of Benedick.
Based on the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, Emerson in the Wild was performed outdoors in parks (in Geneva and Lausanne). The outdoor performances allowed the writers’ words to resonate with natural environments, emphasizing some of the play’s central concerns. The outdoor performances departed from the conventional proscenium setting to problematize the separation between spectator and actor and explored the spatial relationship between actors and spectators.
Emerson in the Wild - May 2014. Geneva, Switzerland.
Emerson in the Wild - Trailer
The production was set in modern dress yet accepted all forms of expressive artifices. The ensemble developed an approach to the work based on a direct encounter between actors and spectators, movement and spatial awareness, deep emotions and entertainment. It sought to keep an eye open on its surroundings and include the audience in its festivities.
A Winter's Tale - December 2013. Geneva, Switzerland.
A Winter's Tale - Trailer
The production was set in modern dress yet accepted all forms of expressive artifices. The ensemble developed an approach to the work based on a direct encounter between actors and spectators, movement and spatial awareness, deep emotions and entertainment. It sought to keep an eye open on its surroundings and include the audience in its festivities.
A Winter's Tale - December 2013. Geneva, Switzerland.