A school. A dead body. A scandal… “Biasalah\nasrama.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Award-winning singer-songwriter Shanon Shah’s first\nfull-length play, Air Con<\/em> tells the\nstory (in Bahasa Malaysia (Kedah dialect) and English with surtitles) of a\ngroup of boys at an elite school in Kedah. The boys confront sex, violence,\nbullying, and growing up after a prostitute is found dead on the railway tracks\nnear their school. The play, co-directed by Jo Kukathas and Zalfian Fuzi, was\ndeveloped under The Instant Caf\u00e9 Theatre Company’s FIRSTWoRKS playwriting\nprogramme. We spoke to Zalfian Fuzi and Ryan Lee Baskaran about the play, and\nfound out some things we never really wanted to know (but we’re sure you do!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why don’t\nyou guys tell us about each other for us?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Zalfian Fuzi: I’ve known Ryan for years already. I\nfirst met him in 1999 when we worked on Flight\nDelay<\/em>, and then he kind of vanished after that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ryan Lee Baskaran: Hey, he’s the one that disappeared!\nZalfian used to drive a Volvo that Ida Nerina used to joke about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ooh,\nplease tell us the joke.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n ZF: You know, big boy, small Volvo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n RLB: That car was really comel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ZF: Hey, that car is older than you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oooh-kay.\nWhy don’t you describe Air Con for us in three sentences.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n ZF: It’s about who we are, and where we’re headed. The\nplay begs the question of what kind of school is this, and therefore what kind\nof society is this, and what kind of country, and religion, and education, and\npolicy is this? There are so many themes like human rights, religion, home,\nlove et cetera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tell us\nabout the origins of the play.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n ZF: The play stemmed from Instant Caf\u00e9 Theatre’s\nFIRSTWoRKS playwriting lab. Jo Kukathas and I acted more or less as dramaturges\nfor two years, working closely with Shanon Shah on his story, characters, plot,\nand themes, and doing a series of readings. Don’t get me wrong though, this is\nessentially Shanon\u2019s play. It’s been inside Shanon for ages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ryan, tell\nus about your role in Air Con<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n RLB: I play a 15 year old Mamak-Chinese mixed kid.\nHe’s your typical nerd, and a real softy. He’s best friends with William,\nanother student at the school, but they both have very different interests;\nwhich is an idea that Shanon uses — that opposites attract. My character, Asif,\nis not as open as William. In fact, he’s kind of a prude. His main interests\nare books and Nelson Mandela. Throughout the play all the boys are sort of\ntested, so see who’s still there for who after all the stress from the murder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zalfian,\nyou and Jo Kukathas are co-directing this play. How does that work?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n ZF: Well, we are always in agreement, otherwise this wouldn\u2019t\nwork. After the last reading we both knew the story inside out, so we were on\nthe same page. Since then it’s been work 24 hours a day with no sleep. We’re\nalways having meetings to discuss the set, the music, the script, the acting,\neverything. We’re always making notes and implementing them together,\ndiscussing details the actors bring up. We both bring things to the table, and\npay attention to each other’s ideas. We don’t have disagreements about\nanything, instead to go and talk about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How have\nrehearsals been?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n ZF: It’s an 11 week process, and it’s been intense.\nWell, it’s always intense when working on a new play. It’s not like Hamlet<\/em>, where you’re ensured some kind\nof success because everybody knows it’s a great play. We’ve had to do a lot of\nscript work, get on our feet, try out new things. I mean, we\u2019re still making\nminor changes to the script, discovering that things work better when they’re\nswapped around, or if this line is said like that and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n RLB: Rehearsals have been really tiring for me.\nBecause I’m attending college during the day, and studying drains a lot of\nenergy. One of my day\u2019s is from 9am to 9.30pm, and then straight on to\nrehearsals. So it’s been hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ok, time\nfor the fun stuff! What is Air Con<\/em>‘s\nevil subliminal message?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n RLB: That’s a tough one. For some reason I’m thinking\nthe evil subliminal message has something to do with royalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ZF: Like a Machiavellianism, right Ryan? Like, always\nhave a scapegoat. Or, always blame other people. Learn how to point the finger.\nThat’s right. Air Con<\/em> is all about\npointing fingers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you had\nto change one thing about each other, what would it be?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n RLB: I’d want Zalfian to speak louder, so I can hear\nthe jokes he makes behind my back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ZF: I don’t make jokes behind your back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n RLB: Yes you do! It’s just that I never find out about\nthem because I can’t hear them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ZF: They’re not bad jokes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n RLB: Yeah right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ZF: I’d want Ryan to be called Asif for the rest of\nhis life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n RLB: You already call me Asif all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ZF: Fine, that’s option A. Option B is I want Asif to\nwrite a song about me. And make a video for me, about me, starring me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sorry,\nthere are no options. Instead, you’re stuck in Hogwarts, and you look into the\nMirror of Erised (which reflects your deepest desires). What do you see?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n ZF: I see me holding Baskin Robbins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n ZF: What do you want me to say? World peace?\n[Thinking] Actually, that would make a great ice cream flavour. World Peach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n RLB: My mirror would just break. I’m too fickle. One\nminute it would have to show a 20 piece drum set, then car tyres, then\nsomething else. It would break from all the effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If neither\nof you had ever heard of ‘art’ before, what would you be doing?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n ZF: I’d be an archaeologist. Archaeology is my first\npassion, but I was discouraged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n RLB: I’d be going to space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ZF: You want to be an Angkasawan? You want to make\nRoti Canai in space, don’t you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n RLB: No! It’s not the rocket or being an astronaut\nthat I like. I just want to be in space. I want to be a space fler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What are\nyour greatest hopes for Air Con<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n ZF: The intention of FIRSTWoRKS has always been to\nstage works that will resonate. Works that will touch and move everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n RLB: I just hope everything goes well, man. What are\nyour greatest fears for the play? <\/p>\n\n\n\n RLB: The opposite, lah!<\/p>\n\n\n\n ZF: Well, I’m always optimistic, so I\u2019m not very\nworried about things going wrong in the show. I’m worried that people will miss\nit, because it would be such a shame. The play is serious, but it’s very funny,\nwhile being controversial and moving all at the same time. It asks the audience\nto take a stand, and I think it would be a real pity to be missed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What are\nthe most productive things each of you could do in 60 seconds?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n RLB: I could start getting changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ZF: I wish I could’ve given this interview in 60\nseconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sorry\nabout that!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n ZF: Well, actually, 60 seconds is a very long time.\nYou can destroy an entire play in that time. It only takes a minute for a play\nto die. Air Con <\/em>has a few amazing\nshort scenes, and in those few seconds the energy can go high or low and fail\nto convey the message, so we have to do our job well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What’s next\nfor you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n ZF: I’m directing another production, but the details\nare still to be confirmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n RLB: I’ve got to finish my studies. After that I want\nto just perform music for a while. At the moment I perform with The Cintas and\nThe Ferns, and I’d like to go places with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~ Yasmin Zetti Martin writes for Kakiseni. <\/p>\n\n\n\n First Published: 23.06.2008 on Kakiseni <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A school. A dead body. A scandal… “Biasalah asrama.” Award-winning singer-songwriter Shanon Shah’s first full-length play, Air Con tells the story (in Bahasa Malaysia (Kedah dialect) and English with surtitles) of a group of boys at an elite school in Kedah. The boys confront sex, violence, bullying, and growing up after a prostitute is found […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"iawp_total_views":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,3558,3535],"tags":[607,228,608,3646,533,46,1349],"language":[7523],"writer":[7638],"class_list":["post-27266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-interview","category-theatre","tag-instant-cafe-theatre","tag-interview","tag-jo-kukathas","tag-ryan-lee-baskaran","tag-shanon-shah","tag-theatre","tag-zalfian-fuzi","language-english","writer-yasmin-zetti-martin"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27266"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39244,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27266\/revisions\/39244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27266"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=27266"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writer?post=27266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}