Dear Kakisenians,
It has made me want to simply give up. After all these years of working and playing in our little patch of local theatre, I’m stunned to be witnessing a concerted, if predictable, effort by City Hall and its PuppetMasters, to:
a) Wrest control of,
b) Neutralize,
c) Kill,
d) Or all of the above – to that same little patch of theatre.
A ‘Kommittee’. What a dreaded word. What a gassy, foot-dragging word. Movers, Shakers and Players never use the word, or the concept of, ‘kommittees’. In contemporary success stories, individual decisions are made quickly, independently, and according to a single forward-looking vision. I know that this is no big revelation – we ALL know from experience that ‘kommittees’ are not designed to expedite operations but the opposite. Whatever the lofty rationale, in practice a ‘kommittee’ functions as a roadblock, a bottleneck, a stranglehold. Let’s not kid ourselves, this move intends to make us less like us and more like, I don’t know, something more deferential perhaps, or nicely, colourfully banal.
Man, after all these years, I’m so tired of mincing, with words or otherwise. If those Voices of Righteous Indignation are allowed to ‘tell it like it is’; then why are we programmed to be mealy-mouthed in our response?
I think that this action isn’t just reactive, but openly antagonistic and coming from an agenda tainted with resentment and insecurity. There, I said it.
Okay let’s recap. Every piece of fiction has its own internal logic and this is what I understand of the story so far.
In the decade-plus that I’ve been involved, the constant has been that local theatre isn’t about anywhere-near-Big Bucks. With no opportunity for gift or gratuity, functionaries of the system found no reason to meddle too much with small, independent theatre companies (in fact, for ages we were referred to as theatre ‘groups’ as befits hobbyists or gypsies). So private theatre producers developed with, by local standards, little supervision from authorities.
Yeah, occasionally a high-profile Kee Thuan Chye play would come under scrutiny (for example, here, it is apparently ‘insensitip’ to use the word ‘Kill’ to describe a killing). But even so, at least Performance Arts ‘groups’ were ignored enough to tell stories that went beyond what TV could do.
I hasten to remind younger Kakisenians that this was a different time, pre-internet, pre-Astro. Throughout Tok Mat’s regime at RTM we were protected from ever having to see ‘insensitip’ items like jeans and backwards-baseball caps on the small screen. Phew, thanks. (We almost got rid of pretty mixed-raced Malaysians from our commercials too but they were middle-class enough to fight back).
The diligence of our Ministry of Information extended to banning musicians for sporting long hair – until this extortion scored a triumphantly humiliating on-air haircut. In another incident, our collective masculinity was saved by the banning of an effeminate sit-com character. It was a time when Amy and his rock-band Search and comic actor lmuda were immensely popular nationwide; it was a time when short-haired butch guys couldn’t handle the competition.
But as a late-80’s theatre newbie I could see that things were different in the margins, the tidal pools of performance arts. The mature themes in productions of Samad Said’s Salina or Rendra’s Maria Zaitun could never be explored in a Cerekarama. My own apprenticeship with Thor Kah Hoong’s Caught in the Middle showed (or as Krishen would say, ‘evidenced’) that urban comedy could draw in the crowds (Caught might not have been as sharp as Instant Café or Akshen, but sixteen years ago it presented local parodies with no sentimentality – imagine Lat with a sneer).
Theatre groups engaged with academics, artists, and the urban middle-class, so not surprisingly, our work reflected their concerns, their sensibilities, and their sense of humour. As our audiences evolved so did we. Socially, the developmental philosophy that ‘we should work on wealth first and progressive thought will naturally follow’ is as wispy and full of holes as lace, but it has, on the surface, held together. More well-off people means more ‘exposure’ means fewer ‘sensisitipities’. Even on the occasions when religious ire was turned on (vaginas, kissing) it was more due to our mistakes in cross-marketing than from a truly unanimous, representative sentiment. For the most part our audiences’ bumiputra component is too cool to be outraged. Onstage, boundaries kept on being advanced, often very well, on par with and sometimes ahead of other young-ish countries going through the same post-colonial thing. And, need it be reminded, with the full collusion of our audiences.
Fast forward to THE Bolehwood show and, more significantly, The Letter. Bla-bla-bla. Someone was offended, nay, cut to the quick, by the performance. So disrespectful was ICT that they might as well have been foreigners.
Let’s get the xenophobia out of the way. Is social satire inherently offensive to the Malay culture? It is arguable that the satirical humour of ICT comes from a foreign tradition, but even if so, then certainly no more foreign than rock ‘n’ roll, or sit-coms, or parliamentary elections for that matter. A vital and agile culture constantly adapts foreign systems for local expression. The issue isn’t that ICT is ‘foreign’. The issue is that for the spirit of ICT to be accessible you need a certain taste for its brand of comedy and a slightly different way of looking at ourselves and all our crutches – including Respect.
You see, as far as I know ICT has always thrived on its policy of respecting not just the maturity of its audiences, but of the Authorities as well (we all know that, unofficially, those at the top are really urbane and good humoured – fat settles around the middle). And by pursuing this policy, ICT, and thereby KL, have earned the respect of foreign observers, especially those from other Asian capitals who have not their own brave and funny self-reflections. Okay, so ICT has the respect of foreign journos, some might ask, but what about their lack of respect for our own ‘Otoriti-otoriti’? We can discuss that. But even if Respect is defined as careful, dainty spins around the party line, then surely history, if not human logic, rejects the strategy of getting respect by banning disrespect.
What if I contend that ICT’s existence is utterly respectful to the policies of the party? It rocks the preconceptions of outsiders because the rollicking relationship between ICT and its audience speaks of an unexpected worldliness – which can only exist in affluence and, more crucially, in stability. Would a theatre company purveying patriotic pabulum be as impressive? An intelligent Authority will see the message implicit in ICT’s presence. Running through any of its acts – like an unspoken antistrophe – is a paean to the system. Who can say, as they experience ICT’s razzle-dazzle, with all that wit and savvy and daring, that the system hasn’t worked? Which Alpha Male isn’t cognizant of the flattering irony in being teased by the brightest of his own progeny?
To lay it all out, here’s what I thought of the ‘kontrovesial’ Bolehwood production. It’s not easy to talk about what I didn’t like about the show since, orang ‘sensitip’ aside, so many people who saw it were in bloody rapture. On one particular night the cast stood stunned to be honoured by a standing ovation and five curtain calls. Believe me, for a performer, five curtain calls is a delirious fantasy akin to clutching an Oscar or marrying J Lo. But I didn’t love it. Every element of Bolehwood’s production surpasses ICT’s previous work (so you see, I can empathise with dead wood) and I laughed as hard as ever. Still, the satire felt a step removed. In stand-up we get ’em on our side with self-effacement (refer to ‘dead wood’ line above). There was less affection in this Bolehwood but most missing was a self in the self-criticism, a shrugging, shared culpability that sweetens satire from being one long outsider’s complaint. But even if as a Malay, I felt kind of blamed by the show’s tone, I know the grown-up response is to take the point and talk about it. And whatever my own tastes, I had to appreciate that in the foyer, a broad-minded multi-racial crowd was mingling, delighted as much by the wisecracks as by the reassurance that ICT can possibly exist right here at home.
Understandably it is politically convenient to perpetuate the notion that a tolerance for frank debate is alien to us. We must affect to agree as a bland, single-minded mass, suffused with endless gratitude. The deception isn’t just in the possibility of one shared sensibility but in the anxiety that we can’t survive without one. It’s just as understandable that a generation with memories of social instability and privation would go along with shutting up, ‘as long as we can make money’, but what’s going to happen when the next generation grows up with fewer nightmares? It isn’t strategic, let alone fair, to keep passing on our limitations to our young.
What if we accepted ICT’s particular angle as part of our diversity? What if we let fair market forces dictate ICT’s future? What if KL’s art scene is left to develop organically in the hands of its practitioners and sincere supporters?
Is it apt that the capital’s cultural scene be dictated by the tastes and tremors of our more conservative citizens? This is tantamount to the industries of Broadway or the West End being intentionally designed to placate some rural constituency. If so, then the best any National Cultural Policy can do is to inspire a lot of patriotic jingles.
Of course the onus is on the appropriate officials to assess the efficacy of ongoing cultural policies. Have their attempts at controlling performance arts resulted in a lively, viable scene? Have the official bodies formed to liase between artists and the authorities resulted in work that is dynamic or merely inoffensive? What about market demands? If the forms of entertainment we most respond to are the ones that have some degree of autonomy (private TV and radio stations, English-language theatre), then is this small token freedom to be pre or proscribed? Even as we get nostalgic over the entertainments of a ‘golden age’, can we honestly say that the earthy vernacular of bangsawan or P. Ramlee would even survive today’s prim and righteous climate?
Ultimately, these are not questions for us. We can only hope that those in position are as capable of evaluating as they are of keeping their jobs. I don’t have to ask what the ‘kommittee’ means to my job – I won’t have one. None of my plays or routines would survive the ‘kommittee’s kriteria’. Don’t worry though, I’m a tough old whore. I’ll take my work elsewhere. But Kakisenians have to ask what this ‘kommittee’ signifies for all you decent, reg’lar folk.
I think this move shows that we set “diversity” within pretty narrow parameters. We can only accept each other’s infinite variety as long it conforms to a particular worldview and only countenance artistic expressions which please our vanity.
Plus, it also “evidences” the power of a certain tone of outrage. The required tone begins like a lament of righteous hurt but as the grievances swell so do the drumbeats of cultural chauvinism. Apply this tone to the right audience and a single letter can make itself heard even in the most closed-door of corridors. Who Whines Wins.
What is on the surface merely arty-farty news about the trials of local performers is underscored by the application of exclusionary values, intolerance, dogma. And, worst of all, humourlessness. These are the components of a vacuum-sealed mind-set at ease with reflexively issuing decrees and fatwas. Don’t the charges of ICT blaspheming Malaysia echo the tedious ‘kafir-mengkafir’ going on in the pulpits? I thought that wasn’t the way we handle disagreements these days. Or perhaps Oppositionist zealotry is just an extreme manifestation of an existing, bi-partisan condition.
When it comes to our economic culture we aspire to steer our young towards practical self-improvement and broadness of view. Shouldn’t this emphasis be sold in a larger cultural marketplace as well? I’m not sure how we are to inculcate dynamic analytical thought (let alone lateral thought) when our mundane preoccupations are in enforcing docility, uniformity and obeisance. Whether we like it or not, much of the outside world is “foreign” and danged disrespectful. Can we encourage in our future an alertness to every opportunity and an enthusiasm for every competition, while officially denying the most frivolous of alternative viewpoints in our own backyard?
We need to develop goodwill and a lot of guts to negotiate, as a united race, in a world “not of our own making”. It is inevitable that many things will not be to our taste. No matter how valid-sounding the reasons we have to censure each other, it is ultimately the act of censuring itself which makes the statement. After all, it’s not the reason why you slap the child but that you keep slapping her that makes her timid.
I don’t doubt that this little patch of local theatre will be regulated out of existence. A stalled license, a blocked permit – any clog in the system can be swiftly unplugged with the appropriate patronage. What hope for performance artists, in our tiny, darting groups? We’re not even ikan bilis just the parasites that live off ikan bilis. Plus there is that institutionalised distrust of intellectuals, performers, outspoken women, dan lain-lains, a distrust inherited from an unimaginative, unlearned ruling elite. Sure, it’s in the system’s interest to keep us liminal. But only in the very short term.
Yours
Jit Murad
First Published: 10.10.2003 on Kakiseni