/ARTS WEEKLY/MALAYSIA: Support Grows for Fined Theatre Group

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Mustafa Ali

KUALA LUMPUR, Jul 29 2003 (IPS) - The muzzling of the works of a popular theatre group, whose satirical spoofs about Malaysia’s politics and politicians were drawing in the crowds, is generating a backlash of protest from arts groups, activists and patrons alike.

Instant Cafe Theatre, whose most recent play drew controversial action from the authorities, has responded to the Jul. 17 cancelling of its performing licence by the Kuala Lumpur authorities by stating that licencing laws should not be used to control freedom of expression and the performing arts industry.

”This cannot be reconciled with our constitution,” Adeline Tan, manager of the theatre company, was quoted as having said. The controversy centres on the theatre’s group’s play, ‘The 2nd First Bolehwood Awards – The Director’s Cut’, a satirical and hilarious spoof about politicians and government policies.

Playing on the word ‘boleh’, which means ‘can’ in Malay, the group chose ‘Bolehwood’ as its brand.

The word has been turned into a national motto, as in ‘Malaysia Boleh’, which is interpreted as ”Malaysia can (do)”, and is part of a campaign by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to boost national pride.

The play also criticised Malaysia’s ‘bumiputra’ policy – affirmative action, particularly economical, for ethnic Malays – which has long been attacked by the political opposition in the country.

Clearly, the critical parody and satire went down well with audiences, and ran to full houses between Jul. 8 and Jul. 13 with tickets sold out in advance of the shows.

In its promotional material for the play, released weeks before the first show, Instant Cafe publicised the show as ”spoofs (of) everything under the Malaysian sun and no one, no institution, no project, no cultural norm, is spared”.

Building on the politics-turns-filmland theme, performances of ‘Bolehwood Awards’ ended with the ”presentation” of ‘Golden Dugong Awards’ for winners of the year in the ‘best song’ and ‘best film’ categories, in what the group mischievously called ‘The phoney full of crony Bolehwood!’

The action against Instant Cafe has provoked all-round support. The Penang-based human rights group Aliran in a statement demanded that the capital’s City Hall, its administrative centre, respect the right of the group to artistic expression.

”Instant Cafe are an accomplished group of performers who portray Malaysian life satirically,” read the statement. ”They force us to look at ourselves and laugh at our idiosyncrasies and weaknesses; they educate us on current issues in a hilarious way.”

Aliran also barracked the administration’s judgement on the show as ”myopic, irrelevant and totally without merit”. The rights group has challenged the city administration ”to air this show on television so that the entire citizenry can watch and give their verdict”.

In its protest statement, Five Arts Centre, another Kuala Lumpur-based performance group, called the authorities’ action ”grossly oppressive and alarming”.

What happened to Instant Cafe Theatre, it said, was a huge step backwards for a Malaysia ”that aspires to be progressive and enlightened in all areas of development”. The statement added: ”We from the arts community cannot accept such repressive and retrogressive measures by the authorities.”

The controversy first took shape, according to media reports, when the city administration issued a letter to Instant Cafe demanding that the theatre group cut five elements from the script which apparently pertained to government policies and agencies, and made some references to religion and race – sensitive topics in this country.

Reportedly after consulting its lawyer, the group decided not to comply because, as Tan pointed out, this would remove entirely the point of the play. The authorities then fined Instant Cafe 10,000 ringgit (2,600 U.S. dollars) for non-compliance, and also cancelled the group’s performance permit.

This action apparently followed the publication in the Malay-language daily ‘Utusan’, of a single letter of complaint from a reader on Jul. 11, two days after the first performance. The letter writer appeared to be disturbed by what he saw as vulgarism and the group’s mimicking of the country’s racial and Islamic policies.

Confusion over the issue continued when Kuala Lumpur Mayor Mohamad Shaid Mohd Taufek issued an apparently contradictory statement during an interview with a newspaper soon after Instant Cafe had been fined.

”I did not find anything offensive about the show,” he was quoted as saying. ”Let the show go on.” But Instant Cafe manager Tan said at a press conference that the group would wait until it received a clearer message from the city administration before deciding to continue.

Artistes have run into official interpretations of the role of the arts in Malaysia before.

In February 2002, the 19-year-old Five Arts Theatre group was banned, also by the Kuala Lumpur city administration, from staging a re-run of the hit feminist play, ‘The Vagina Monologues’.

At the time, complaints from the public were cited as a reason, ”Using the word ‘vagina’ was one of many reasons of the City Hall’s action,” said the theatre group’s executive director Marion D’Cruz. ”But they also gave us other reasons too.”

Among them was a scene in which a woman talked about her life and the religious patriarchy that troubled her. ”We did not intend to focus particularly on Islam,” said D’Cruz. ”In fact the play talked about religion in general. Also, it did not intend to touch specifically on religious issue; instead the play looks into many systems of patriarchy that oppress women.”

D’Cruz said that artistes can still express themselves, but that the conditions under which they do so are left unclear. ”We try very hard not to compromise, to do what we want to do and to push to say what we want,” she said. ”But sometimes the unpredictable atmosphere is still a big problem for us.”