A Still Life
Writer Alfian Sa'at has folded into his story a couple of bravura reversals and a lyrical subplot.
So much of Nadirah seems to be, if not painting by numbers (for that sounds far too cruel), then almost a model essay in dramatic form: something playwriting students could be encouraged to analyse for its workmanlike treatment of plot, theme and character. Much of the play is so conventional you can almost imagine French windows on the back wall of the set: the sincere heroine striving to forge her identity; the supporting cast of contrasting archetypes, each with an opinion about who she should be; the lengthy debates on matters of import; the steady stream of set-ups and pay-offs.
Fortunately there's more to it than that. Writer Alfian Sa'at has folded into this seemingly predictable story of a girl coming to terms with the place of religion in her and her family's life a couple of bravura reversals and a lyrical subplot that manage to elevate it from entirely competent to rather good indeed.
The first reversal comes when Hatta Said, playing the president of the NUS Muslim society with all the supercilious swagger of the blindly self-righteous, offers/demands to talk with the mother of his vice-president, Nadirah (Siti Khalijah), to persuade her not to forsake Islam for a Christian man. Despite imperiously bullying Nadirah and her less devout friend (Shida Mahadi), Hatta appears to be struggling to keep a straight face, and in so doing he captures the poorly disguised smugness of those who insist they are doing the will of the almighty: that strange admixture of po-faced piety and narcissistic glee at being the humble instrument of divine justice. Lights up on the next scene, though, and we see a wilted, childlike Hatta confronted not with the expected Muslim woman, someone he would feel able to condescend to, but with an older, Chinese-Christian male (Tony Quek). Hatta's fall from self-appointed grace is stark, amusing and entirely apt.
The second reversal comes when Nadirah discovers that her mother's (Neo Swee Lin) commitment to their shared religion is much more fragile than she had ever suspected. Instead of becoming angry and berating her mother, however, she asks why her mother brought her up to be so pious. Siti's voice here is suffused with the baying of a wounded animal, and we feel that the hooks religion has lodged in her heart are pulling at her painfully; we feel the crushing weight of the burden of faith she has so long - so needlessly? - upheld. Her mother's reply is even more unexpected: she brought Nadirah up with the most ardent love of Allah because she worried her daughter might be taken from her by Malaysian religious authorities should either of them show the slightest sign of impiety. This scene tugs urgently at the ravel of threads that compose our conceptions of faith, culture and family. It asks what price a soul? What price heritage? What price a mother's love?
Extending this theme, a subplot in which Shida's character falls for a Turkish man from a different sect of Islam and in which she investigates the erotic possibilities of devotional poetry achieved a gentle, unexpected lyricism.
Sensibly, the production team had responded to Alfian's dialogue-heavy script by aiming for a spare, clean staging that wouldn't distract from the words. And certainly Toby Papazoglou's shadowless, photo-studio lighting, Izmir Ickbal's chaste platform of a set, and Fezhah Maznan's restrained, tonally balanced costume choices contributed effectively to this aesthetic.
The direction largely helped too. Directors Zizi Azah Abdul Majid and Jo Kukathas maintained a consistent acting style across their ensemble whilst keeping the archetypal characters vividly different; they finely calibrated the play's unhurried pace; and they succeeded in producing blocking that stayed on the right side of the line between minimalism and stasis. But they were guilty of one peculiar oversight: they were unable to keep two of their actors (Shida and Hatta) from gazing starry-eyed through the fourth wall as if they were part of a communist propaganda poster. This was distracting bordering on comical every time it happened, and I had to fight off the constant urge to turn around and sneak a look at whatever wonder of the People's Republic they were so fixated on.
It was especially glaring in contrast to the perfect fourth-wall management of Siti Khalijah, in the play generally, and also in the one scene that intentionally included the audience in a mock game show. Her deer-in-the-headlights stares into the auditorium in this scene were so strikingly different from her usual disregard that they underlined just how wrong Shida and Hatta had got it, and how surprising it was that the directors, so sensitive to all other aspects of their dominion, had failed to notice the problem.
But apart from that, the acting was fine. Tony Quek as the avuncular neighbourhood GP that Nadirah's mother falls for was perfectly cast, if unstretched. Maybe he missed a couple of beats in a scene of comic awkwardness where Neo's character forgets to provide him with utensils for a home-cooked meal, but he made up for it with his judicious playing of the status game in the confrontation scene with Hatta.
The double-act of Shida and Hatta reliably provided the play's light relief, with each bordering on stereotype without crossing over into cartoonishness. Shida got great mileage out of provoking Hatta with her defiant lack of piety, and Hatta rose to the bait with relish.
Neo Swee Lin delivered a sensitive, grounded performance as Nadirah's mother, easing us into the considerable complexities of her finely written character. At first she seemed like any other mother - a reliable domestic presence; comfortable and efficient; someone who worries about her children rather than herself. But Neo gradually revealed the forces that were pulling at her, as well as the force of will that held them at bay... and by the end it was clear that her surface tranquillity was the product of the deepest of running waters.
And Siti Khalijah as Nadirah herself did not put a foot wrong. Granted, this was not the most demanding role she has ever played, but it did have its challenges. For example, if you go by the play's dialogue alone, Nadirah comes across as far too politically naive to ever become the vice-president of a religious society - but Siti imbued the character with an appealing earnestness that gently nudged that objection into the back of my mind. And she handled her more emotionally demanding scenes with liquid suppleness.
So Nadirah was a strong production of a strong stage play. But if it had one significant limitation, it's that its wordy script necessarily resulted in a staging that was visually uneventful. Indeed, an alternative description of the show would be that it was a somewhat redundant physicalisation of a truly excellent radio play. Certainly, if I were Alfian, I'd be trying to make a bit of extra cash out of this by sending it off to the BBC World Service...