Family Violence
There is something almost hypnotic about the work.
When Noor Effendy Ibrahim's tale of a dying mother and her two sons was first produced in 1992 by Teater Kami, the intense family drama was staged with only a table and three chairs, with the audience on the floor. This minimalist approach is now extended to the text itself which Effendy says he has "cleaned up" for this 2009 version.
In stripping down this play, however, he is left with a strange, half-formed creature that shuffles awkwardly and languorously around the stage.
There are scenes of excruciating tension such as when the actors brutalize one another in a barrage of rough combat - wrestling, slapping, knife play - to physicalise their complex relationships. Other times, they simply threaten one another with the quiet but deep invasion of another's personal space. Fingers stroking a face never felt so sinister, disturbing and wrong. These work the best: the menace of vicious, violent assault, often of a sexual nature, hangs heavily like a dark cloud of sadomasochism and barely bridled lust throughout the production, giving it dramatic weight.
At these moments, the play feels vital and purposeful. The heart beats fast. Unfortunately, the rest of the play is simply drowning in stagnant water. Ziarah is lost in enigmatic whispers and stillborn pauses; the pared down text punctuate the silences rather than the other way around. In fact, in a scene where the actors forget a significant chunk of their lines, one is actually unsure whether Effendy has simply excised a whole bunch of text and not bothered to keep the surtitlist updated. It's the sort of play, after all, where it almost doesn't matter even if he did.
The programme says Ziarah examines how the individual self is suppressed as a sacrifice to the "We" of the family unit. Yes, I grant that there is some sense of claustrophobia, of being trapped, of resignation and resilience, but even this is only felt never explored. The slow unmasking of the incestuous relationship between the three family members - one of the "sons" has been fathered by the other - explains the trio's twisted relationship but it is presented as a matter of fact rather than used to really advance the play or deepen our understanding of its theme. A piece of theatre needs to have some sort of movement, change, development - even regression as a form of progression. Ziarah, for all its twisting and turning on itself, feels strangely static. There is no sense that the sad and angry characters or the situation they fester in have really evolved in any way. As a result, I did not gain more from forty-five minutes of the play than I perhaps did after five.
In particular, I thought Effendy could have mined a different vein with greater success. The turgid brinjal protruding from a hole in the wall which is sliced throughout the play to serve as food for the family, is unmistakable as a phallic symbol. Is it standing in for the missing father? Is that what a patriarch can be reduced to? - a penis? A nameless, faceless source of physical life and sustenance but not emotion? Effendy mentions in the talkback session that the absent father in a Muslim family is something that the play alludes to but is not its main focus. Yet, this is the idea that I found the richest and thus most distracting, as it stares at you for nearly an hour from the stage, its potential left unharvested.
Effendy's commitment to his idiosyncratic vision might be seen as stubborn, almost self-indulgent. However, I did find value in this production. There is something almost hypnotic about the work. Part of the reason is because the slow-moving play nonetheless has the benefit of the cleanness of Effendy's precise direction. His use of cryptic visual symbols and his measured, almost ritualistic, way with physical theatre - I especially liked how the actors moved on and around the long table in the centre of the stage - is also enthralling.
Effendy is able to draw aggressive performances from his ensemble cast as well. I'm not sure if they are entirely convinced by the why of their performance but they execute the what of it in all its fullness. This is the second time I have seen him work with these three actors; the first was in Bilik Ahmad which earned them a well-deserved Life! Theatre Award for Best Ensemble. There is clearly trust and understanding between the director and actors but my praise comes with reservations. I would like to see more range from Misha'aal Syed Nasar and Saiful Amri. Both have a magnetic presence but Mish'aall, in particular, needs to branch out of the sort of slow-witted roles that seem to have become his stock in trade (see also Panggung Arts' ...dan tinggal tiga baju raya). Then there is the always good Siti Khalijah Zainal who really needs another great role in another great play - her performances rarely surprise anymore.