Date: Thursday, 08 July 2010
Time: 20:30 - 22:30
Location: Instant CAFE's HOUSE of ART and IDEAS [CHAI]
Street: 6 Jalan 6/3, Off Jalan Templer
Town/City: Petaling Jaya, Malaysia
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WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOUR BROTHER WAS UNJUSTLY ACCUSED BY THE STATE?
COME AND WATCH A REHEARSED READING of WHAT SHOULD BE A MALAYSIAN CLASSIC.
With
Inessa Irdayanty as ANIKE
and
Cheryl Tan as YASMIN
Also with
Patrick Teoh as MANIAKA the Tuanku
and
FISH FADZIL as his BENDAHARA
And the youthful talents of
Iedil Alaudin as NADIM, Anike's Beloved and Son of the Tuanku
and
Qahar Aqilah as the MESSENGER
Also featuring Andre D'Cruz as TOK SETH the Blind Seer
and Jo Kukathas as the CHORUS
Directed by Jo Kukathas & Zalfian Fuzi
Entry is by donation to CHAI (minimum RM20 please!) to enable us to continue running CHAI's public programming and workshops.
CHAI Wallahs* enter for free!
* For more information on CHAI Wallah, email [email protected]
Time: 20:30 - 22:30
Location: Instant CAFE's HOUSE of ART and IDEAS [CHAI]
Street: 6 Jalan 6/3, Off Jalan Templer
Town/City: Petaling Jaya, Malaysia
FB EVENT PAGE
WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOUR BROTHER WAS UNJUSTLY ACCUSED BY THE STATE?
COME AND WATCH A REHEARSED READING of WHAT SHOULD BE A MALAYSIAN CLASSIC.
With
Inessa Irdayanty as ANIKE
and
Cheryl Tan as YASMIN
Also with
Patrick Teoh as MANIAKA the Tuanku
and
FISH FADZIL as his BENDAHARA
And the youthful talents of
Iedil Alaudin as NADIM, Anike's Beloved and Son of the Tuanku
and
Qahar Aqilah as the MESSENGER
Also featuring Andre D'Cruz as TOK SETH the Blind Seer
and Jo Kukathas as the CHORUS
Directed by Jo Kukathas & Zalfian Fuzi
Entry is by donation to CHAI (minimum RM20 please!) to enable us to continue running CHAI's public programming and workshops.
CHAI Wallahs* enter for free!
* For more information on CHAI Wallah, email [email protected]
WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOUR BROTHER WAS UNJUSTLY ACCUSED BY THE STATE?
A brother is put to death by a paranoid Tuanku who then decrees that his body should be hung outside the city gates and let to rot as a warning sign to the rakyat not to disobey his authority.
His sisters, ANIKE and YASMIN are in conflict - their love for their brother wars with their instinct not to go against those in power. But for Anike the decent and human thing to do is to cut her brother down and give him the dignity of a burial.
For this the enraged king demands she be punished.
The conflict between authority and those who dissent, between age and youth is a perennial one. In ANIKE, Malaysian poet and playwright WONG PHUI NAM takes the classic story of the Greek play 'Antigone' by Sophocles and makes it into a story for our time: a story of youthful idealism and the terrible consequences that are unleashed when a young woman defies the state.
A WHAT IF... ON A TUAH JEBAT STORY
The play also turns the page on our classic Tuah Jebat story.
The conflict between subject and king is told in Malay history in Jebat's usurpation of the Melaka Sultan's palace. This is supposed to be an act to right the injustice done to Tuah by the Sultan in ordering his execution on mere suspicion of sexual pecadiloes. As told in 'Hikayat Hang Tuah', the Sultan, on being told that Tuah has not been put to death as ordered, angrily summons Tuah to the palace and orders him to kill Jebat on his behalf as a demonstration of loyalty. This Tuah does.
A parallel between this story and 'Antigone' may be drawn by having an invented sister of Jebat's defy the Sultan by retrieving for burial her dead brother's body left to rot hanging from a tree at the city's main gate on the Sultan's orders.
This is what Wong Phui Nam has done in 'Anike'.
A brother is put to death by a paranoid Tuanku who then decrees that his body should be hung outside the city gates and let to rot as a warning sign to the rakyat not to disobey his authority.
His sisters, ANIKE and YASMIN are in conflict - their love for their brother wars with their instinct not to go against those in power. But for Anike the decent and human thing to do is to cut her brother down and give him the dignity of a burial.
For this the enraged king demands she be punished.
The conflict between authority and those who dissent, between age and youth is a perennial one. In ANIKE, Malaysian poet and playwright WONG PHUI NAM takes the classic story of the Greek play 'Antigone' by Sophocles and makes it into a story for our time: a story of youthful idealism and the terrible consequences that are unleashed when a young woman defies the state.
A WHAT IF... ON A TUAH JEBAT STORY
The play also turns the page on our classic Tuah Jebat story.
The conflict between subject and king is told in Malay history in Jebat's usurpation of the Melaka Sultan's palace. This is supposed to be an act to right the injustice done to Tuah by the Sultan in ordering his execution on mere suspicion of sexual pecadiloes. As told in 'Hikayat Hang Tuah', the Sultan, on being told that Tuah has not been put to death as ordered, angrily summons Tuah to the palace and orders him to kill Jebat on his behalf as a demonstration of loyalty. This Tuah does.
A parallel between this story and 'Antigone' may be drawn by having an invented sister of Jebat's defy the Sultan by retrieving for burial her dead brother's body left to rot hanging from a tree at the city's main gate on the Sultan's orders.
This is what Wong Phui Nam has done in 'Anike'.