“Home is where the hurt is”

Reviewer: Myle Yan Tay
Performance: 4 November 2018

We walk into the skeleton of a home, thin metal wires for walls, artificial patches of green surrounding it, while Maslina (Dalifah Shahril) prepares dinner. Her two children, Zaki (Al Hafiz Sanusi) and Juliana (Shafiqhah Efandi), are in their room alternating between headlocks and chokes. And at the front door, Ruslan (Saiful Amri Ahmad Elahi) and an unknown character (Kaykay Nizam) dance and wrestle. And as the play progresses, this implied violence intensifies in waves of frenzy and control.

Twenty-three years after the first performance of his script, Cerita Cinta, Noor Effendy Ibrahim returns to recreate a tense, chilling, and thoroughly unnerving depiction of domestic violence. It is not an enjoyable piece of theatre. It is a harrowing story that fills the audience with dread that is only released when the actors bow at the curtain call. Effendy does not allow the audience any chance to escape the claustrophobic household, making its brief 70-minute runtime feel far longer.

Effendy and his team have a masterful control over the tension throughout this play. Dialogue is sparse and infrequent. The characters barely speak, and when they do, lines are only several words long. There are frequent silences accompanied by only small movements onstage, be it Ruslan’s father (Joe Jasmi) hovering over the dinner table, or Ruslan crossing the kitchen to wash his feet. But each moment feels fraught with danger.

Saiful deserves special recognition for his portrayal of Ruslan, the patriarch. As a character, Ruslan fluctuates between being dismissive, adoring and, more often than not, terrifying. Saiful successfully embodies all of these contradictions. Similarly, Kaykay, who plays both Juliana’s boyfriend and a stray dog, captures the audience’s attention with his physicality. He is both rough and graceful, and the moment when his two characters converge is unforgettable. The show’s scenes are punctuated by anGie seah’s haunting vocals, which are melancholic and beautiful.

Though Cerita Cinta almost suffocates its audience in its reality, it is worth reflecting on whether the show reproduces violence through its depiction. There is no stage combat in the show, meaning when a character is hit, they are truly hit. This choice pulled this reviewer out of the show, where concern for characters became concern for the actors instead. A show can still be immersive and safe without replicating what it attempts to critique. This production could have managed this same sense of terror without harmful physical contact, as seen in other moments of the play.

“一个初级的罪世界”

Reviewer: Liu Chang | 刘畅
Performance: 4 January 2017

2017年伊始，在M1 Singapore Fringes Festival 期间，新加坡马来族导演Noor Effendy Ibrahim再度将 <Si Ti Kay>呈现给观众。这是继2012年新加坡首演后该剧第二次在本地上演。

<Si Ti Kay>颇具实验风格，不讲故事，只谈“意”。

解读“意”似乎最容易不过，没有标准答案，观者各有领悟。说它表达了爱与绝望，或意志或暴虐，或身体与政治、甚至简化为人与人的交流种种，均可。但观者颇能体味到此次<Si Ti Kay>公演传达出的关于原罪的思考。

关于罪的体悟部分来自于舞台风格及演员的表演。

此次公演舞台布置极为洁简。剧场空间Black Box好似一间小学生课室容量，天顶略高，演员在空间的中央。舞台地板不过是普通白色近透明塑料布铺底而成；从高处俯射向舞台中央的柔和暖色光线，映出天顶的滑轮与绳索、及绳索末端的庞大肉食，以及肉食下方盛纯白色牛奶的器皿。虽然演出结束后导演解释这次没有采用2012年那种新奇繁复的舞台装置（桌椅及房屋等）主要是经费问题，但这种极简的舞台效果，尤其是身处黑暗之中的细心观者可隐约感受到舞台光线中纷纷然起舞的细微尘埃，竟然令观者联想到创始之初的朴素与混沌之美。而这种洁净、神秘的原始宁静与诱惑背后，人类又有何等的位置与特质呢？这便需要演员通过表演给予回答。

早在观众入场之前，三名演员已先进入表演状态。观众进场后可以随意坐在舞台之外的任何一个自以为惬意的角落，或选择为数不多的座椅，或席地而坐。

两位男演员JohnCheah和M. Haja身着白色紧身背心及短裤，内有艳红色女式胸衣及三角底裤，以些许慵懒的姿态半躺半坐在舞台一侧。虽然胸衣也兼具色情和施虐意味并有混淆性别之感，而配合整体舞台设计，二人肌肤的裸露与健美，简单无言语的肢体交流（如进食、喂食等），及表情和动作混杂着纯真、迷茫，间或本能的友好与荒蛮的敌意，令人更多联想起米开朗琪罗的著名壁画《创世纪》。

然而导演显然并非要表达本原纯真状态。

女演员Siti Z在舞台另一侧以服饰（白色衣裙，红色丝袜及白色三角内裤外穿）、表情（眼神迷离与情欲）与肢体动作（时而交叉双腿时而分开）等在强烈暗示观者，接下来的表演里将会出现虐恋的情节。Siti Z口中的绳索通往天顶的滑轮，绳索上另一端的肉食，随着Siti身体的扭动而时高时低。一盏孤伶小灯微弱，照见舞台中央一只老式收音机播放循环往复的旋律、夹杂好似随机的噪音，单调重复毫无意义，又些许如同命运之慵懒与无常。此时此刻，是否一切都将蓄势待发，是否有某种原初的罪恶在悄悄酝酿？

随着表演的进行，悬挂于半空之中的肉食，通过演员口衔绳索，经由演员身动作时而升空、时而坠入盆中牛奶里，好似希望与诱惑，常常发生，但终又失去。当象征了人类生命源头之一的乳白牛奶——当真如观众所期待地——泼洒在演员的头顶，当肉食——果然似众多色情片所展现——充当以鞭挞的工具，正值一场虐恋的、些许色情意味的表演进行时刻，演员的表情、肢体语言及简单的发声传达出轻蔑、冷酷、不安、无所适从、嫉妒、绝望、疯狂、愤怒、情欲、性虐等等，却令人联想起人类的原罪，那些说不清楚出处的原始罪恶。

观众一定不能忽略的是三名演员头戴的施虐口枷。当代表了虐恋文化的口枷又有限制剥夺人类语言之隐含意味，这样，演员不断重复的进食、哼鸣、嘶吼与暴力等便退化成原始的动物本能。正所谓，创始之初，天地混沌，语言尚未发生，然人类已拥有七宗之罪：傲慢、嫉妒、愤怒、怠惰、贪婪、暴食及色欲。罪先于语言而生，或许罪是人类之间最早的交流，尽管这是一种极端的荒蛮的人类交流。然而遗憾的是，在“罪”的道路上，<Si Ti Kay>并没有更加清晰深刻的反省，尽管演出的效果之一确实成功地令观者产生了这样的联想。

另外，关于罪的体悟，更多的其实是来自于对导演本身的想象与期待。

首先，不是所有的观众都乐于将<Si Ti Kay>仅仅简化成性爱或是政治性的解读，也许一些观众更喜欢从人性的角度来观看本剧。同时，当代观众也已非常聪明与在行，都很明白导演不能单靠一部作品闯世界，必然要将他放进个人的艺术轨迹与整个艺术世界的发展去评判。

七宗罪是艺术领域（电影、文学及绘画等）反复被演绎的主题。当我们尝试将<Si Ti Kay>放进更大的艺术领域去观察，并从罪的角度去解读，它的独特之处在于以舞台、以肢体动作、以表情等来表达罪。但在视觉受到冲击与享受之余，观者又不免觉得它在短短的一个小时之内，表达得并不充分。它更像一个关于罪的N部曲中的序幕或者其一；并且它意在展现“罪”，但没有更深入地去探讨“罪”，例如，罪的起源只是通过演员之间相互的鞭挞和蹂躏来展现是不足以解释说明的，应该还铺陈交待罪从何而来。即使是相信原罪学说，也需要更充分的表演来体现导演的观点。

并且，如果Effendy有意继续深入其“罪”，未来必然需要涉及“罚”及救赎的部分。这一部分当然是难点，至今各种艺术从事者能如俄国作家陀思妥耶夫斯基一样深入彻底地探讨者依然为数不多，“罚”与救赎永远是一个充满无穷探索空间的主题。因此，观者就充满了期待，有了如此一个良好的开端，希望在未来看到的Akulah BIMBO SAKTI的剧场表演可以比<Si Ti Kay>走得更远，有更加深邃的思考。

“Entanglement of Intimacy”

Reviewer: Beverly Yuen
Performance: 1 October 2016

What happens when your family member is your love, your burden, sanctuary, and hatred all at the same time?

The Malay Man and His Chinese Father, directed by Noor Effendy Ibrahim, and staged at Goodman Arts Centre Black Box, was first presented at the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2015[1].

In this staging, the Chinese father (Michael Tan) and Malay son (Yazid Jalil) are played by the same actors as the first. However, one prominent element which is missing is Asnida Daud vocally accentuating the helpless states of the characters, and suggesting the presence of the wife’s “ghost”. The presence of this “ghost” throws the contrast in ethnicity into sharper relief.

While the character development and psychological narrative of the father and son are much more detailed and layered in this realistic rendering, the contrasting ethnicity is downplayed in this staging. Nonetheless, I am not suggesting this piece is any less enjoyable.

I savour this work with disconcerting relish. The speechless and cyclic representation of life reminds me of film director’s Tsai Ming-liang’s Vive L’Amour. But this show is much more repressed and dysfunctional, as the world of the father and son is contained within a two-room flat.

The play opens with the father and son in their briefs, and going about their daily household chores in a routine manner. This immediately establishes an intimate space, with audience seated as close as 50cm from the actors.

Through realistic actions of the son serving the father porridge and coffee, bathing him, and movements of tussling and cuddling, the conflicts of the intimate relationship between the two are portrayed— embrace versus struggle; support versus resistance. The son feels the need to help the father relive the memory of his wife by dressing in his mother’s kebaya, and experiences sexual abuse from his father thinking that the son is his wife.

The recurring action of opening and closing of windows also has great symbolic significance in the piece. The son is finding a way to escape from the household to seek a way to live, but he seems to be trapped in the pleasure of torture while being confined with the father. The simple act surrounding the windows also signifies the secrets within the household which risk exposure.

With suppressed frustration, the son wants to help his father find strength through the latter’s reminiscence of his wife, but he grapples to let go of his father. This too, hurts for the audience.

[1] Beverly Yuen’s review of the first staging of the production can be found here.