Maybe far too many evenings spent captive watching fusty, antediluvian and embarrassingly d\u00e9mod\u00e9 British Airways Playhouse productions over the years in the name of journalism have caused me to despise them more than a little. They’re always the goddamn same. They’re always mawkish farces, which means that the usual accelerating kerfuffle arising out of hackneyed devices such as mistaken identities, unlikely situations, misunderstandings and downright lies, and verbal humour that often includes double entendres, puns and sexual innuendo, will inevitably explode in a lightweight hearts-and-flowers ending. Maybe they were good for a giggle in the uptight England of the 1950s and early 60s when sniggering at adulterous spouses, slappers with big knockers, short people and naughty vicars was the very height of wickedness. But these days, it seems that unless you yourself are similarly superannuated, bedroom farces that once teetered on the very edge of social decency now appear to be relics of a bygone age and crashingly boring given the extended interim. So maybe it’s a bit unfair that Masakini Theatre Company’s earnest reprise should be lightly lambasted by a thoroughly biased critic, but hey, tough titty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No sex please, we’re British?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Alan Bennett, confrere of master\ncomedians Dudley Moore, Peter Cooke and Jonathan Miller, loved to dwell on the\neveryday and mundane, obsessions with class (a national mania) as well as cleanliness,\npropriety and sexual repression; now an empty myth given Britain’s position as\nworld leader in premarital pregnancy with its legions of 16-year-old single\nmothers living on welfare, which has given rise to the charming soubriquet\n“pram face”, a term currently used on this scepter’d isle to describe\na girl who would not look out of place pushing a pram around a council estate.\n“No sex please, we’re British”, my arse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Born in Leeds in 1934, Bennett is\nfamous for his solid body of work, his schoolboy-like appearance, his Yorkshire\naccent, and more recently, his gayness. He has been called everything from\nnational treasure and prose laureate to curmudgeon laureate, Oracle of Little\nEngland, The Bard of British Loneliness and national teddy bear. The English\nreally, really like him. But he is perhaps not taken as seriously as his peers,\nmuch to his chagrin — a 1998 National Theatre ranking of the century’s\ngreatest playwrights didn’t even place him in the top 20. There is a persistent\nworry, you see, that he can’t resist a joke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Habeas Corpus<\/em>\n(Latin for “you should have the body”) first premiered at London’s\nLyric Theatre in 1973 and is probably one of the sauciest pieces of the era,\nand was specifically engineered to highlight the sexual excesses of the English\nmiddle classes in the 60s, when birth control made rampant shagging even more\naccessible, far less stigmatised and very near consequence-free. Every single\ncharacter commits sexual misdemeanours of some sort bar the gagging young\ncleric and the virtuous charlady narrator, and somebody’s trousers are off in\nall but one scene. The subject of breasts — large ones in particular — is a\ncentral theme, and much sport is made of admiring them, fondling them or\nordering them in a box. Hidden among his trademark one-liners, Bennett’s\nmessage is simple: Life is short, so therefore we should grasp the objects of\nour lust with both hands, as it were. But alas, my jaded, spoiled person, still\nsick to the back teeth of genteel English theatre, longed for the end way\nbefore it was anywhere in sight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Farce is a genre of theatre that has\nalways been highly tolerant of bad behaviour and invariably depicts humans as\nvain, irrational, greedy and childish. Naturally it was the French who excelled\nat its most risqu\u00e9 forms and the most famous bedroom farceur of them all was\nGeorges Feydeau, whose collection of coincidences, slamming doors and\nridiculous dialogues left Paris agog in the 1890s and is now considered the\nprecursor of the Theatre of the Absurd. But it was Viennese playwright Arthur\nSchnitzler who took it to its zenith in Der\nReigen<\/em>, which featured 10 bedroom scenes and a daisy chain of sexual\nliaisons that resulted in his being branded a pornographer. David Hare’s 1990’s\nadaptation, The Blue Room<\/em> — famous\nfor hitherto unseen glimpses afforded of Nicole Kidman with her kit off — is\nthe most recent incarnation of the shocking Der\nReigen<\/em> that has maintained its ability to scandalise through the ages. In\nreal life, this guy Schnitzler was a big perv: he meticulously kept a diary\nfrom the age of 17 until two days before he popped his clogs, and the\nmanuscript, which runs to almost 8,000 pages, is most notable for his casual\ndepictions of numerous sexual conquests. For a period of years, he even kept a\nrecord of every orgasm<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, in comparison, the gentle\nribaldry of the English is exceedingly tame, but is perhaps more in keeping\nwith widespread local Victorian attitudes and our easily offended DBKL, who are\nmore than likely to put the kibosh on anything really<\/em> naughty. A pity. Still, it is highly possible that less\nprurient theatregoers than myself may find the spectacle of a woman’s front\nbits being cupped in public amid bursts of mild rudeness quite adequately\nstimulating. For me, it was all quite ho hum, really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Deepest, darkest indiscretion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The plot: Balding lothario Dr.\nArthur Wicksteed is tempted by a piece of hot tatty who walks into his clinic\nfeeling a bit faint. She meets his hypochondriac son and learns he has Brett’s\nPalsy and has but months to live. This is the answer to her dreams, for the\nHon. Felicity Rumpers is with child out of wedlock, a heinous crime even in\nthose promiscuous times. Arthur’s single and exceedingly flat-chested\nsister-in-law Constance longs for a big set of jugs and orders a pair despite\nthe attentions of the ardent cleric Cannon Throbbing, who would simply love to\npop her cherry as well as his own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whole squadrons of misunderstandings\nmaterialise in due formation. When Connie’s falsie-fitter shows up unannounced\nand mistakes the genuinely Junoesque Mrs. Wicksteed (sadly ignored by her\nphilandering husband) for his client, the gropefest begins. Mrs. Wicksteed\u2019s\nold flame, Sir Percy Shorter — the butt of a barrage of short jokes — shows\nup and proposes to Connie’s newly ample bosom to the horror of the sex-crazed\nhousewife and the feverishly celibate priest, while a suicidal patient of the\ndoctor tries to hang himself in the living room and is roundly ignored. The\nplay goes on in similar slap-and-tickle fashion until finally a walking deus ex\nmachina arrives in the form of Felicity’s uppity ex-colonial mother who puts an\nend to all the wanton chicanery by revealing her own deepest, darkest\nindiscretion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sounds appetising I know. But apart\nfrom Sabera Shaik in her portrayal of deprived hausfrau Muriel Wicksteed, whose\nhilarious amorous pursuit of the confused fitter utterly delighted the\naudience, Sarah Shahrom’s excellent fainting spell as “Lady Rumpers of\nAddis Ababa and Kuala Lumpur” and Kay Chin’s wonderfully gauche spinster, I was\nrarely moved to gales of laughter. In fact, I was rarely moved at all. Aside\nfrom scattered tee-hees and a few isolated guffaws, Masakini’s valiant attempt\nstill managed to slip alongside its dull English relatives in my personal\npantheon of old-fashioned, torpor-inducing productions with the greatest of\nease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The trouble is, farce is hugely\ndependent on an actor’s ability to use his or her body as a tool of humour, as\nper the multi-jointed John Cleese. But despite director Chris Jacob’s\ncommendable effort to “further test their capabilities not only as an\nensemble but as trained practitioners of physical theatre”, it is evident\nthat they have an appreciable way to go. For despite acting so hard they almost\npop out of their skins, the rest of the cast don’t quite manage to be anywhere\nnear as amusing. Kay Li is sufficiently winsome as the coy Felicity, but I\nprivately ached to see the likes of Nell Ng in such an impudent role where\nsophisticated body language is everything. Nor Hazlin Nor Salam just about gets\naway with her bogus and occasionally excruciating working-class accent as nosy\nnarrator Mrs Swabb; whose maintenance of a higher moral standard than her\nsupposed superiors is a pointed piece of social irony. Lim Soon Heng’s Sir\nPercy, who wins the prize for most stage-time spent without pants, is a\nlecherous pocket-sized Napoleon and suitably conceited President of the British\nMedical Association, and knocks the socks off all the other men in the\nensemble. Wong Wai Hoang as the mental patient bent on suicide has a face made\nfor farce, being both expressive and droll, but we saw way too little of him.\nAnd Baki Zainal as the terminally-ill Wicksteed offspring is far from winning\nand frequently expressionless, while Derek Ong as the lust-infused pulpiteer is\nso painfully earnest I could have wept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most importantly, the entire play is\nsupposed to be held together by the sleazy GP who goes through life\n“stopping at every lamp post”, and the most hilarious moments in Habeas Corpus<\/em> are apparently down to\nthis character being played by an actor possessed of the gift of excellent\ntiming and a natural talent for physical comedy. Terence Swampillai as the\nrandy old doctor was a preening peacock all right, but unfortunately failed to\nmanifest himself as the consummate comedian required of the piece. Constantly\nstanding on his tiptoes, sticking out his gut and pouting lewdly, he was a\ngrotesque caricature of a grotesque caricature. He may have been a logical\nchoice, having been cast as an odious Tartuffe in Masakini’s previous crack at\nfarce last year, but as Dr. Wicksteed, ageing sex machine, he was kind of\ngross. If that was the idea, bravo, you repulsive little man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At least the tickets aren’t as\npricey as the ones for those posh, brittle soirees at the Parkroyal. And who\nknows? This was just the opening night; maybe they’ll improve by leaps and\nbounds on subsequent days? After all, even Marcel Berlins of The Guardian<\/em> recently advocated the\nastounding concept of the two-visit theatre review to avoid the very real risk\nof first-days gone FUBAR premiered to the press that result in their being\ncomprehensively rubbished and which jeopardise the play’s entire run. But\nthat’s for plays that last for weeks. This one ends on Friday (28 Apr 2006).\nAgain, all I have to say is tough titty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Habeas Corpus<\/em><\/strong> is running at The Actors Studio Bangsar until Fri 28 Apr. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~ <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sherry Siebel is back! <\/p>\n\n\n\n First Published: 25.04.2006 on Kakiseni <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Maybe far too many evenings spent captive watching fusty, antediluvian and embarrassingly d\u00e9mod\u00e9 British Airways Playhouse productions over the years in the name of journalism have caused me to despise them more than a little. They’re always the goddamn same. They’re always mawkish farces, which means that the usual accelerating kerfuffle arising out of hackneyed […]<\/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":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7758,7774,7762],"tags":[4345,4351,4282,2995,4348,3642,4349,1780,4346,3120,4350,49,1374,4347,4284,550,46,4352],"language":[7785],"writer":[7886],"class_list":["post-27882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artikel","category-ulasan","category-teater","tag-alan-bennett","tag-baki-zainal","tag-chris-jacobs","tag-derek-ong","tag-john-cleese","tag-kay-chin","tag-kay-li","tag-lim-soon-heng","tag-masakini-theatre-company","tag-nell-ng","tag-nor-hazlin-nor-salam","tag-review","tag-sabera-shaik","tag-sarah-shahrom","tag-terence-swampillai","tag-the-actors-studio-bangsar","tag-theatre","tag-wong-wai-hoang","language-inggeris","writer-sherry-siebel-ms"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27882","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=27882"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38522,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27882\/revisions\/38522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27882"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=27882"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writer?post=27882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}