The music was bewitching. Painful, it was so beautiful. It was coming from the rehearsing room at the ground floor of the Five Arts Centre, and was created by Saidah Rastam for Huzir Sulaiman’s next play Occupation.
As I entered the room, Claire Wong was going through a last practice run of this one woman show. Her presence filled the whole space as she impersonated an old lady, a younger one with many questions, and probably others, but coming at the end, I was a bit lost.
I was there to interview Malaysian playwright and co-director Huzir Sulaiman – and Claire, as he’s always careful to share all the credit he gets with her-. Guarded and choosing his words very carefully he didn’t really let on the reasons why this play is so important to him, one that has been for four years in the making and that underwent sixteen drafts. It is possible Huzir reveals a lot more about himself in his plays than he does in interviews.
Of course, the story is about his grandmother, someone he clearly admires and to whom he wanted to pay tribute. And a sense of urgency was given when his grandfather passed away two years ago, before Huzir had time to talk much about his private life. Mrs. Selvaraj, Huzir’s grandmother, indeed seems a formidable person. A pioneering feminist, she founded the women’s welfare association in Singapore and is consulted by the Historical Board of Singapore to trace back what happened in the island in earlier days.
Huzir says “she is very charming, but also a very modern wife. She’s a multi-facetted woman. […] She’s very open minded and leads a very full life”. The play is on her life during the Japanese occupation in Singapore. As a daughter in a very wealthy Muslim family in Singapore (then part of Malaya), she was completely cooped up during the war, yet managed to conduct a secret romance with Huzir’s grandfather and got married to him on June 4, 1944. Incidentally the play “Occupation” opens on June 4 this year.
A dynamic is created in the play between Mrs. Selvaraj, and Sarah, an oral history collector who interviews Mrs. Selvaraj. “What is interesting is to see how history is written,” explains Huzir “that is the intellectual backbone of the play.”
The play is not a documentary, nor does it claim to have revisionist positions on the occupation, but it gives different angles to events. A lot of research went into the final work including several interviews of his grandmother, a workshop in Singapore with all the collaborators on the play, walking around the places mentioned by Mrs. Selvaraj.
Huzir surrounded himself with a very strong creative team. Wong Hoy Cheong, a Malaysian conceptual artist who produces some of the most challenging work in Malaysia – a lot of it around the concept of history and how it is written-, is the set designer. Saidah Rastam is the composer and sound designer. The lighting is designed by Bernard Chauly, an independent film writer and director. The digital imagery – an abstract background with floral and textile patterns – is created by Singaporean Casey Lim. Lee Jia Ping is the production and stage manager. And of course, there is Claire Wong, the performer, co-director and co-producer.
A Malaysian with Singapore PR, Claire performed since the eighties, but was a full-time lawyer until she went to Columbia University in 1997 to study theatre. She has very strong acting credentials, acting in Atomic Jaya in 2001, the equivalent for actors of a marathon for the number of different characters performed by just one person, and she played Mme Mao in Mme Mao’s Memories at the Mecca for theatre, the Edinburgh Festival.
As for Huzir, he is known in Malaysia for his slick scripts. Some can be intelligent deliberations on subjects such as art or the democratic process (Notes on Life and Love and Painting, Election Day) with quotes that you’d want to scribble down and keep. Others are lighter and strong in wit and rhythm (Atomic Jaya, Hip-Hopera, Those Four Sisters Fernandez).
The chemistry seems very strong between all the creators of Occupation, between Huzir and Claire, and among the whole team. “We ran [the workshop in Singapore] as a grad school seminar,” says Huzir. “There was a very inspired and inspiring set of discussions”.
Now we know that the play has all the ingredients to be a visually stunning, thought provoking piece of work, the only catch is that you need to go down to Singapore to see it. Indeed, it was commissioned by the Singapore National Arts Council for the 2002 Singapore Arts Festival to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the fall of Singapore. It runs from June 4 to 7 at the DBS Arts Centre.
“As a Malaysian theatre practitioner, I would love to show it here [in Malaysia],” says Huzir. “But it is expensive. And it’s not a comedy… ”
So, either book your train tickets now, or pray that a sponsor sees value in financing the run of the play here!
Huzir Sulaiman is the director the Straits Theatre Company. He is an actor (including acting in the Instant Cafe Theatre Company, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, The Other, Election Day}, a director (including for Atomic Jaya, Hip-Hopera, Notes on Life and Love and Painting) and a playwright (Atomic Jaya, Hip-Hopera, Notes on Life and Love and Painting, The Smell of Language, Election Day, Those Four Sisters Fernandez}. He is working with Zahim Albakri on a project that has something to do with the Middle East, and is editing his plays for publication.
First Published: 29.05.2002 on Kakiseni