In Malaysia, there are four categories for theatre- Malay Theatre; Indian Theatre; Chinese Theatre; English Theatre. There is a great article written by Carmen Nge here on the Five Arts Centre website.
To my family over here, going to the theatre is not recognized as a popular form of entertainment. Especially those living in Malaysian Borneo. In fact, I don't even think they have many, if any, theatres around those parts. I guess it seems obvious, but you won't go watch a show if it isn't spoken in your (cue the Spelling Bee soundtrack) "Language of Origin". And then, why would you dish out a hefty sum for a ticket if you didn't know what it was all about? You might understand what they were saying, you mightn't understand what they were saying. The theatre-going demographic becomes somewhat of an exclusive audience (like the ones in NZ, where people wear merrino togas and rattle their costume jewelry at the operaaaah).
I was watching a dvd yesterday, a Christian show called 'Drunk Before Dawn', a musical written by young Malaysian composers, orchestrator, playwright and lyricists all under 25, featuring an entire cast and live orchestra of over 80 people from all ethnic diversities. It's about the missionaries coming to Borneo to do work with indigenous Sidang Injil Borneo (SID), sung in English, and not too dissimilar to an American broadway musical. Well, just quietly, it was like watching Ricky Wong from Chris Lilley's 'We Can Be Heroes'. That's the thing, I'm not interested in Western/English forms of theatre here. If it's not intrinsic to your own native language and natural cultural poetry, it just won't fly.
It reminds me of watching the New Zealand show 'Arohanui', back in August this year. There was something so powerful and moving about the kapa haka- the physical prowess, the synchronized choreography, the meeting of the audience. Moments of strong connection, of tu and of rongo. However, moments of dialogue in English lost that connection, and it gets me curious about how the skills implicit to Kapa Haka can be translated or lost into the performing of English verbal text.
The problems in the theatre models here are entwined in Malaysia's political difficulties. Within its vastly diverse ethnic make up is an inability to come to any cultural agreement. That is to say, the romantic notion of '1Malaysia' is in itself a flawed concept. Ethnic communities here strive to retain their language, their tradition, their religion. The idea of unifying a community means leaving a part of that thing that makes one 'special and unique' behind, bleeding together a largely Western notion of popular culture, creating a globalised state.
This happens all over the world. Who 'owns' the culture of the land- the indigenous, the colonizers, the slaves that work and build the landscape? Despite the generations of people that call a country home, ownership lies in the hands of the powerful. This is my first experience of being in the country where the white man is not so overtly villainized for coming in on a boat, raping and pillaging the natural resources, and then shrugging and saying 'well no one told us it was occupied'. Hah, there are a bunch of other culprits, and everyone and no one is to blame. I'm not in any position to start name calling, but it is painfully obvious that this is a country in the throngs of a National Identity Crises.
And on a side note, went to the Petrolium Museum in Miri, and check out their company logo, a symbol of Malaysian wealth and prosperity...
"It's a small world after all, it's a small world after all..."
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