FRESH AIR FOR THE LIONEL WENDT

by ECB Wijeyasinghe

When Julius Caesar said: “let me have men about me that are fat,” he must have been thinking of persons like Lionel Wendt.

Wendt was half a dozen extraordinary characters rolled into one and would have delighted the heart of Caesar’s recruiting sergeant. Naturally, Wendt was a heavy man where adiposity was concerned, but he was not in the same class as, say Percy Cooke, or N.J. Martin. Percy Cooke was one of the most highly respected solicitors of his time.

He traveled in a limousine specially built for him by Colonial Motors. The front seat which he occupied had no doors for obvious reasons. N.J. Martin, Crown Proctor in distant Chilaw, had an enormous office table, carved out in the centre to fit the shape of his body. When he retired, Albert Peries, the former Speaker, took over Martin’s office, lock stock and barrel, but re-modelled the furniture to suit his slender frame.

Lionel Wendt, on the other hand, despite his heavy build was a bundle of energy and when he walked up the steps of Lake House, two at a time, he was obviously putting an undue strain on his great heart. The premature death of perhaps the greatest Dutch Burgher of this generation put an end to a brief but sparkling career.

It is difficult to believe that the one and the same man could be a photographer with an international reputation, a brilliant pianist, a conversationalist who could bandy wisecracks with Oscar Wilde, and an aesthete, if ever there was one. Wendt’s father was a staid and scholarly judge of the Supreme Court. But the secret of his versatility probably lay in the fact that his mother belonged to the old De Saram family.

BURGHERS

Whether they play cricket, tennis or golf, or perform on the ‘cello or piano, or merely manufacture castor oil for ICI, they are always at the top of the class. It is also a curious thing that some of the most enthusiastic admirers of and authorities on Sinhala Art and Culture should have been non-Sinhalese. There was Ananda Coomaraswamy, of course, but most of the others were Dutch Burghers.

Take these for examples – Andreas Nell and Cyril Nicholas were antiquarians of the highest order. There was one more thing that was common to both of them. They were bachelors. In the evening of their lives, instead of hitching their wagons to some falling star, they spent their time studying things that were old but beautiful.

L.E. Blaze, the founder of Kingswood College, Kandy, wrote one of the most readable histories of Ceylon. R.L. Brohier, now an octogenarian, is still the last word on ancient irrigation systems which provide food for thought to modem engineers. George Keyt has absorbed the beauty and grace of Oriental Art to such a degree that nobody thinks of his Dutch connections.

There are people who are convinced that Keyt is the re-incarnation of one of the painters who kept old Kasyapa happy on the Sigiriya rock, by taking his mind back to the houris who had done their bit for King and country.

There are other Dutch Burghers of this generation whose contributions to culture and art cannot be ignored. In the field of drama, the work of Professor E.F.C Ludowyk, Arthur Van Langenberg and Percy Colin-Thorne are outstanding. All of them were friends of Lionel Wendt who in some respects resembled Nataraja, the Hindu deity with two legs but four arms, especially when he played the piano.

PHOTOGRAPHER

D.R.Wijewardene, the Boss of Lake House, always on the lookout for talented young men saw the camera-artist in Lionel Wendt and made his plans accordingly. Wendt was given a free hand to design and build a modem photographic studio where excited bridal couples could keep cool while their features were being recorded for posterity.

Even fathers-in-law who had reluctantly parted with big dowries looked happy under Wendt’s barrage of witticisms. Chitrafoto ultimately became a permanent adjunct of Lake House and the model for up-to-date studios. There were other good photograpers in Colombo, but very few people could tell their children and grand-children that a man with an international reputation handled the camera when they posed for this picture.

HAROLD PEIRIS

One of Lionel Wendt’s most intimate friends and admirers was Harold Peiris. Harold who occupies a part of Alfred House built by C.H.de Soysa, is also an aesthete like Lionel and a patron of the Arts. Since his youth he has cultivated the habit of doing noble things, not dreaming them all day long. One of his dreams was to build a permanent memorial to his bosom pal and nothing more concrete could have been raised than the Lionel Wendt Theatre and Art Centre.

Harold built it on the very site where Wendt used to give impromptu recitals of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms for his high-brow cronies, but something simpler to low-brows like myself. One of the documents I prize highly is a note written by Wendt in blue pencil on copy paper, after seeing “The Cardinal” a high-powered drama staged at St. Peter’s College Hall. After a most generous reference which I scarcely deserved, he said: “But my gawd ” And added some unprintable comments on the performances of one or two others who happened to be his friends.

A couple of days later he dropped in at the “Observer” Editorial room and extended an invitation to Editor Hilaire Jansz and myself to a drink at his home. There, looking very much like Mark Hambourg, his teacher, he sat at his grand piano, wearing a scarlet dressing gown. For half an hour he entertained his two-man audience with music and words.

Probably thinking that the classics were not good for our digestion, he let himself go in a species of Boogie-woogie, with variations of his own, in order to please our simple musical souls. There was no cant in his make-up and he did not pretend to be a plaster saint. To most of his friends and pupils however, he was a demi-god. When Harold Peiris conceived the idea of a memorial, the play-song public heaved a sigh of relief that Colombo was going to have a model theatre at last. The plan was to make it sound-proof and heat-proof. In fact it was going to be air-conditioned.

THEATRE

“But how oft the schemes of mice and men gang aft agley!” The Wendt Theatre at present is merely air-tight. That is all. After the first act of a play the animal heat of the audience begins to make itself felt. However amusing the comedy the people who come to laugh either remain to gasp for breath, or quietly follow the dramatic critics to the well-stocked bar to recharge their enthusiasm for Drama.

There is a body of Christians who believe that sinners must go through Purgatory before entering Heaven. St. Peter is supposed to stand at the Golden Gate and check up on this. There is also a formidable body of opinion inclined to the theory that visitors from Sri Lanka to the celestial regions are absolved from this penal formality, on one condition. They have to prove that they spent a certain number of hours at the Lionel Wendt before the footlights. But air-conditioning will change all this. The fever and the fret will go for ever and you will not be able to sit in the dark and hear each other groan.

To cut a long story short, a big drive is now on to help Harold Peiris to achieve this meritorious goal and make the Lionel Wendt Theatre worthy of its name. Besides, every cent given towards this corporal work of mercy will receive its reward, if not at Guildford Crescent, at least in a higher region where there is no comedy or tragedy and the only man who raises a laugh is Harpo Marx looking for his brother Groucho, who had evidently given him the wrong address.

The next step after getting the air to blow in the right direction is that a section of the Lionel Wendt Complex should be named after Harold Peiris, who has almost killed himself physically and financially to keep alive the flambeau of his friend’s fame.

(From The Good at their

Best first published in 1978)