Another Country

Another Country and the casts

First of all, this is my first time watching a theatrical performance. A professional one. And it's kinda sad (and funny) when I told my friends that I'm going to see a play directed by Singaporean and Malaysian directors, because they were all like:

"That play is produced by local ppl? You sure or not? Not by ang mo meh?"

"Har? We can watch theatre here in KL one ah?"

"I think it should be something like wayang kulit, right?" (this is very saddening, I know)

LOL. Their response towards Another Country, really truly shows art especially performing art can never be a local thing, it's ALWAYS another country thing. I guess we have too little exposure to art, especially local arts. That's why all my friends are dumbfounded to know we can actually watch theatre in KL. 

After getting all discouragement from my friends and they'd convinced me it would be as boring as hell even though they had no idea how a play should look like, I kinda had zero expectation towards it. Frankly speaking, I felt sluggish and no excitement at all when we were on the way to DPAC. Not to mention that we were even late for 15 minutes for the show. 

But as the play had ended, I thought that my friends were totally wrong about the play, because it was awesomely performed. 

So awesome that I had a totally new perspective towards performing art.

Okay, let me tell you the awesomeness about this play.

Why performed texts?

The beauty of Another Country is they perform a compilation of Malaysian and Singaporean literary or media texts. So, the first half of the play had Malaysian actors performing Singaporean texts, second half vice versa. And I've got to say this is a wise way to address issue that is very difficult to discuss.

Why?

Because usually all the political articles that we read on newspaper or on the Internet, they tend to be more critical, or biased to one side and stay WITHIN politics only. Well, it will still somehow create impact to certain extend, but not as much as how Another Country impacted me.

I guess this is because the texts used in Another Country are more personal, emotional and individual. The writers and authors address certain issue but with less critical manner, rather affectionate and funny. This is way BEYOND politics. 

Then, I came to realization that politics often draw borders and divide people, but arts portray emotion and unite people by making connections in between audience, actors and the content of the art. It's fascinating to think theatre plays a crucial role in changing the way how the society think.

Another thing that interests me is that although Malaysia and Singapore were separated for so many years, we still share many common similarities and cultures. I may not know the history background of Singapore, but we all laughed at the same thing during Singapore segment, when they mocked about their culture, because BRO WE FEEL YOU!

 It's just as if Malaysia is the shadow of Singapore, and vice versa. And you can never step on a shadow, nor destroy it. The similarities between us are so deeply rooted that the separation can never undermine our common bridge. See, the play did not only successfully made me feel affectionate towards my own country, but also the neighbouring one!

lol

About the performance 

There were certain scenes where the whole theatre was in complete silence, no sad orchestral background music, no close up shot on actor's tear rolling down the cheek, only the actor/actress saying out the lines, and they still successfully created tension and emotion. Not to mention that they have to say all the lines out loud (so loud that the voice must be heard clearly in last row) while portraying emotion. 

Just imagine yourself shouting your lung out but still need to express grief, sadness, tension, joy and other kinds of emotion through every words spoken. 

Their every slight change of facial expression and that trembling in their voice must be noticed by all of the audience. And we were all sitting on a fixed place, we had a fixed view on the stage, which means there won't be any low angle or high angle or oblique shot to heighten their emotion expressed. 

Without the help of techniques used in films, effects or excessive use of props, now we're all forced to focus on the text only. This is how art should be like right? It shouldn't be a form of entertainment that provide escapism from our reality, but to convey values or perspectives believed by the author which can make a change in our painful reality.

Favourite scene?

My personal favourite scene would be Ang Tau Mui. It's where one of the actress humbly squatting down and eating pork, describing how tasty it was and putting up a satisfying look in her to have pork in every of her meal. 

No matter how people around her reminded her that pork is super unhealthy and she should be more health conscious, she didn't care any of it. 

"Eat pork also die, don't eat pork I also will die, of course I will choose to eat pork la"

We all may laugh at her ignorance, but deep inside our heart, we all know we admired her courage.

The courage to live a life we want when we are bounded by all kinds of commitments and responsibility. 

While living in this painful reality and not given an option to escape from it.

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A side note to what Kaili mentioned on her blog:

It is so sad that in our society, the LGBTs are always the helpless minorities. And it is always a debatable and sensitive issue to discussed about. Why is it sensitive? Because to most of us they are still the abnormal ones. This has rooted in the our society for a long time. So I wish to be alive to see the fading of this boundary of normalcy and abnormality one day.  

She made a really good point over here where our society is ruled by the majority in which we often see it as the truth. This so-called truth should be demolished one day. We should accept one another.

But, I always believe that there are truths that hold our world in place. Truth that forces us to do the right thing, truth that defines how a human being should behave, truth that sets evil and good apart. I'm not saying that LGBTs are evil, who am I to judge them when I am just a human being.

I just want to make a point that, sometimes, there's a necessity to have a boundary that defines what is good (what we see as normalcy) and what is wrong (what we see as abnormality). The fading of this boundary of normalcy and abnormality may not be a good thing and when this happens, it's when we have lost humanity.

For example: Stealing, for now, we see it as something abnormality, if one day we have lost the ability to draw the boundary of normalcy and abnormality, stealing will be an absolutely normal act to do and there will be nothing wrong about it. Just imagine how chaotic our society will be by then

Well, I'm not trying to argue about LGBTs, I'm just posing another perspective of how we should see truth.

Then, you will ask, what is truth?

I do believe in God, I'm a Christian. And I do believe in the truth that has always been holding me in place, and sets me free. :D