Seven Deadly Sins

Batsheba Zlikha Arsalan (left below) asked me to slip a poster (click to full size) for The Oral Stage's latest show at Actor's Studio which opened on Tuesday and runs till December 28.

The blurb reads :

Sink your teeth into the forbidden fruit as The Oral Stage unleashes its closing season for 2008 with a sinful anthology of original plays. Inspired by the age-old classification of vices, the seven deadly scenes is a fresh Malaysian take on lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride.

Please do go along and support this group of talented young people who are writing some of freshest and most interesting material around and performing it creditably.

All details here on useful old Facebook. (How did we ever do without it.)

Two Must-See Things

Don't forget. Francesca Beard performs 28 - 30th September at KLPac:

Chinese Whispers is a show about identity, set in London, at the start of the 21st century, in a city where daily, over 300 languages are spoken, arguably the most multicultural city in the world. It asks the questions:

'Who am I? Where are you from? Why are we here? What makes us laugh? and Which would you rather be, Hamlet or Buffy the Vampire Slayer?'

"This babelicious city where daily, more than 300 languages are spoken"...

"In Britain today, it's all about your roots, your identity, but there's banana bio yoghurts over there who've got more live culture than me. I've got to get out of this place!"

"We spoke English at home, not because my dad was the big white chief but because English is what you speak when you're all from different places, and in my family we were all strangers, I mean emotionally it was like the bar in Star Wars"...

"So, where could we go from here? We could go anywhere - To the palace of the Jade Emperor, in the rainforest with ipecucuana. Right here, now, me and you, we could open the door, to something new, something no-one else has ever seen before!"

And also worth catching is the latest offering by exciting young theatre group The Oral Stage:

fiftynineminutes.
original short plays and monologues performed within one hour.

“Two friends discover faith, direction and the truth. An actress whom we all like to hate. A bitter past haunts a bitterer couple. A girl finds beauty in ugliness. A man and a woman make love over dinner. A fellow Malaysian makes the country proud. And a group of roommates bring back the dead- all within fiftynineminutes”

When September 28th - October 1st 2006 @ 8.30 pm

Where The Dram Projects, BG06 Happy Mansion Apartments, Jalan 17/13 46400 PJ

Tickets RM10

Ticket contact Louisa Low @ 0163757833

And I'm going to be away and miss them both ...

Rojak Revisited

Fiona and I went to see The Oral Stage's Rojak on Sunday with Fiona Wan at KLPac, principally to cheer on one of our own. (Both Priya and Fiona did my writing class.) But I always suffer pangs of guilt that I don't make enough effort to see local productions, particularly when some of the freshest local writing finds its way onto stage. As happened too with this collection of shorts and monologues.

Rojak was an excellent name for the production, because there was such a variety of stories and styles. Sanjiv Gnaneswaran's Who Wants to be a Malaysian? was a hilarious skit in the Instant Cafe Theatre mould - a multiple choice test for all those who want to become citizens. Sample question: What do malaysian's use least when they're on the road: a) their indicators b)their helmets c)their seatbelts d) their brains.

Rauf Fadzillah's The Damnation Recital was most surreal and dark - the characters trapped in a kind of hell. I'm not sure I "got" it, but the staging was compelling. I loved the moment when his main character laughed at the audience telling them that he had taken something from us all, something we didn't have anymore - fifteeen minutes of our lives.

My favourite piece was Me Speak No French written by Doreen Loo and performed by Emily Yoon - a very clever monologue on the difficulties of hosting an elegant dinner party. I suppose I enjoyed it most because I can identify with it. I've also ended up with a beautifully laid table, a gourmet dinner in the oven - and no guests.

Two very good pieces by Patricia Low could have been stronger with a little more dramatic tension. Print was an extended conversation between two guys sitting at a roadside mamak stall. Low has an excellent ear for dialogue, and you got the impression that you could have been a fly on the table at a real stall. But there was no climax in the scene until the two guys got hit by a passing car. (Quite realistic in the Malaysian context!) But all drama needs conflict or it sags.

Low's A Very Happy Story showed how life would be in the perfect family with no discord. Kids who have their mind set firmly on their studies and don't talk back, parents who are constantly kind and considerate. Of course it all becomes surreal and even a little frightening! (Have these guys been lobotomised?!) But I was expecting something to happen and shatter the dream - and it needed to happen. As Lagos Egri says:

Conflict is the heartbeat of all writing.

Priya appeared in her own Romanticization, looking desperately sick, arm in sling, on a hospital bed and was soon involved in a conversation with a "nurse" who seemed to be another part of herself, reminding her of all the abuse and exploitation at the hands of the different men in her life and the way women are often in denial about what happens to them.

Fiona and I were pondering everything we had seen in the car on the way home. There was a fair bit we hadn't quite understood (What do you think that represented? Was it supposed to be -?). But we both agreed we'd been thoroughly entertained and there was an awful lot of emerging talent on that stage.

Rauf and Priya looking ghoulish in the lobby afterwards!

Rojak, Anyone?

This is a plug for Rojak playing at KLPac until Sunday.

It's :

... an original blend of shorts and monologues, tossed with a spoonful of youth and matters close to our hearts. From happy families, sudden deaths, sinking boats to talking mannequins, ROJAK! is dark, gooey and pedas as we Malaysians like it. Every serving includes a generous portion of nuts, on the house. ... This production is presented by The Oral Stage, which is a non-profit group of theatre-curious youth who direct and star in their own plays. Immersing themselves in theatre without lifejackets, they hope to come out alive learning a thing or two. Currently in their second season, TOS strives to make theatre more accessible to the public, especially young people, through their stage performances and community involvement.

Priya who did my creative writing course last year wrote one of the plays and is performing (I feel like a proud mum!). Also in the cast is Rauf Fadzillah a very talented young writer I've written about before. The Oral Stage also has a lively blog which you might like to check out.

By the way, for anyone across the world who doesn't know what rojak means: it's a delicious Malaysian fruit salad, and so is used to refer metaphorically to an eclectic mix of things in Malaysian English.