Staging Asia

By Sumit Mandal

Japan is flung clear across the grounds, to the edge of the forest. The scene: A mountain retreat north of Tokyo, October 2003. A group of theatre practitioners meets for the third time in an experimental collaboration.

It all began in Tokyo in February the same year when 16 accomplished directors from Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Japan and the US were brought together by the Setagaya Public Theatre and the Japan Foundation for the first workshop of the Asian Contemporary Theatre Collaboration Project, themed “The Lohan Journey: Creating New Fictions of Asia.” Initially, they showed off the best of their creative wares.

Things were different during the second meeting in Bali. No longer burdened by the need to prove themselves, the directors talked with each other for the first time in the verdant isolation of the Bali Purnati arts centre. If “collaboration is communication,” as Loh Kok Man would assert to the group on many an occasion, then the project began in earnest at this juncture.

The group would have three more meetings lasting several weeks each, towards creating a piece of theatre: in Kawaba and Tokyo, in Japan, and Makiling in the Philippines. I was drawn to the project from my very first encounter with the directors on a humid evening in Bali, standing in for an absent Indonesian-English interpreter. There was something special about the group, its politics, and the journey upon which it had embarked.

The directors faced squarely the challenges of a seemingly impossible project: cultural strangers, brought together to make theatre – and not through the tried and tested formula of a designated director, script and rehearsals. Instead, they developed the leadership, working processes, and substance of their performance through intensive collaboration over the course of a relatively long two years; one that explored the creation of a community beyond national boundaries. Rather than simply assigning to each other roles specific to their nationalities, the directors explored individual strengths within the transnational space which they constituted.

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It was in Kawaba that Japan was thrown out of the loop. The scene was part of “International Land” directed by Ivan Heng, one of 11 workshop pieces produced at the mountain retreat. Airports, arrival and departure lounges, immigration counters – sites so common to worldwide travel and moments in transcontinental journeys were explored and vividly invoked outdoors by the performers.

When several of the Southeast Asians decided to lay out a map of the region to indicate their respective countries, they did so with their shoes. The actors fiddled excitedly with the shoe-map as they crafted their region, and when it appeared to have been completed, Japan hovered only slightly above Southeast Asia – just before Nam Ron picked up "Japan" and hurled it far away with much gusto. To its rightful position, he claimed. Tatsuo Kaneshita, as “Japan”, ran off to the edge of the forest to stand by his newly repositioned shoe, lonely and bemused in the shade of the trees.

Conflicts, challenges and differences in aesthetics, creative styles, cultures and nationalities surfaced, and they were worked out in scenes such as this. Nam Ron’s improvised move signified how distant Japan was from Southeast Asia not only in physical, but cultural, political and economic terms. The collaboration might have been initiated and funded by Japanese organisations, but the inequalities between Japan and Southeast Asia were faced squarely. The collaboration not only allowed for, but encouraged creative tensions – a testament to its success.

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From Bali to Makiling, the group did not merely celebrate the wonderful diversity in their midst but also faced the real difficulties of inter-cultural collaboration boldly and, for the most part, in good form.

The workshop experiments were open-ended in both form and content. The pieces performed ranged from the small and personal, invoking a sacred quality even, to large multifocus works. After such sharing of experiences, the group decided to split into three subgroups at the Makiling workshop, focusing on the themes of identity, migration, and terrorism. Language was one of the primary challenges. The performers spoke Mandarin, Tagalog, Indonesian and Malay, Javanese, Thai, Japanese, and English, not to mention numerous dialects as well as varieties of English. No single language adequately served as the common one. How then would they produce a piece of work collaboratively? Would it be possible to use multiple languages? Would this feel natural on stage?

Inter-cultural theatre often avoids the challenge of language by focusing on movement and image, but this collaboration made a concerted effort to work with many languages and the different ways of using them. At least eight were experimented with, including various forms of translation. One involved a piece improvised in Kawaba where two actors speak their own languages, albeit within a context which makes the multi-lingual dialogue intelligible.

Herbert Go plays a psychiatrist speaking English in what seems to be a mock German accent, though much of it comes out as a steady, compelling gibberish. Rochmad Tono is the patient, speaking mostly in Indonesian with a smattering of English. In much the high-minded manner English speakers can adopt, the psychiatrist refuses to entertain the patient in any language other than English – never mind his own jarring accent. “Speak in Heenglish,” he insists repeatedly to the patient, becoming almost feverish when the latter can only respond in Indonesian. The verbal assault becomes quite oppressive for the extremely exasperated patient, who inevitably explodes in anger: “I paid you! Can’t you speak in Indonesian?!” He shouts in English.

The patient rebels against the psychiatrist’s abuse and the conceit of English as the universal language. The scene nicely renders not only the harmony or richness of multilingual (and often multi-ethnic) interactions, but also the conflict and frustration that can emerge when the conversation is not between equals or results in incomprehension or miscommunication

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What about claims to representing Asia in the project’s name? An answer may be found in the presence of Josh Fox, a collaborator who from his spoken English and mannerisms is recognisably American. Why was he there? Did he not make the production less Asian? The response to the first question is simple. Josh was part of the group because he had done considerable work in inter-cultural theatre.

And if we should believe that the presence of Fox made the production less Asian, did the rest of the group unequivocally represent Asia in cultural, geographical, political and other ways? How would it be decided who belonged and who did not to the Asia imagined? At least according to the shoe-map laid out in Kawaba, Japan was very far from the rest of Southeast Asia, perhaps far enough not to be part of Asia at all.

When it appeared that the directors were lost in their search for “Asia” during the Bali workshop, I encouraged them to pursue it as a piece of fiction. Asia surely does not exist in some easily definable, homogenous and unchanging manner, but is a fiction which is made and remade. The directors would find Asia, so to speak, through the act of story-telling, should they reveal something of themselves in the stories.

Rather than being an exception in the group, Fox’s participation cautioned against representing Asia in simple or exclusive terms. In the spirit of experimentation, the group focused on the business of collaboration and allowed its identity to emerge in the process instead of defining the nature of its Asianness at the outset. In developing this identity, it seemed valuable, if not ethical, to keep in view the conditions shared by human beings across the globe.

In Kawaba, Jo Kukathas lauded the reference to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda in a piece exploring political violence. By touching on Africa, she noted, the group brought to the fore a continent that was frequently rendered invisible in the mass media. Furthermore, in her mind, the reference to Rwanda brought home “the interconnectedness of human suffering in the world.”

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Inter-cultural theatre is not new and neither is the multiculturalism that may be fashionable in the mass media or political rhetoric at any one time. Barriers have been crossed many times in the past, across family and kinship groups, villages and more. We are now more self-conscious in our efforts to do the same because we are born not only into families but regulated nation-states; we have been given our own larger family of mostly unknown relatives through birth certificates, passports and other salient controls.

Many if us cross boundaries for work and other imperatives. Nevertheless, we often have to make a more self-conscious effort to go beyond the national self, the collective person that we believe ourselves to be that we can see and value everyday inter-cultural experiences. Take the daily encounter in Malaysia and Singapore with workers from Nepal, Bangladesh, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and other countries.

The collaboration was part of that selfconscious effort to see links beyond our nations from the ground up. I harbour no illusions of the group struggling for the cause of the oppressed. Rather, I believe the performers incorporated into their creative work their empathies for others who face crises, and their own challenges. And by embracing the differences (including the languages) of the other performers they self-consciously explored new border crossings.

One person, Kentaro Matsui, had a strong sense of the politics which he hoped would emerge from the collaboration, though he hardly imposed any kind of pre-ordained design on the group. The Setagaya director was key to making the experiment possible. In his mind, the main object of the collaboration was to explore theatre. He hoped the group would develop an identity of its own and find a role for itself in the diverse worlds of theatre and society in Asia.

For Kentaro, the collaboration was to improve on the 2001 production Pulau Antara (The Island in Between), co-written by Malaysians Kam Raslan and Jo Kukathas, which adhered to the conventions of theatremaking. The latter directed a cast made up of Malaysian and Japanese actors. In retrospect, it appears there was little by way of intercultural collaboration, besides the casting of the actors. Nevertheless, Kukathas observes that much effort went into working not only with the cultural proclivities and languages of the two nationalities, but ethnic differences among the Malaysians themselves. While the play may well have explored inter-culturalism in this regard, there was no attempt to seek a different way of making theatre.

The present collaboration distinguished itself from Pulau Antara by breaking the conventions of theatre while at the same time advancing the earlier play’s attempt to delve into Japan’s wartime past; the Japanese Foreign Ministry had intervened rather forcefully to eliminate from the 2001 play’s references to Japan’s role in World War II.

In contrast, the workshops in the last two years explored this role without reservation. One of the most memorable pieces was directed by Joséfina Estrella and performed by Josh Fox and Loh Kok Man. The beautiful and placid countryside of Kawaba was profoundly transformed in the piece when all the members of the collaboration were taken on a bus trip around the area. Josh played a Chinese American son accompanying his mother (Loh) on a tour of her native China. As the trip unfolded, Fox (also playing the tour guide) related a gruesome narrative of killing, rape and suffering as if it were taking place along the path of bus.

It turns out that everyone was transported back to Nanjing in 1937 after the Japanese army had devastated the city. Kawaba’s famous apple orchards, toiling farmers, neat vegetable patches and so forth were transformed into scenes of violence and death by the evocative narrative. At the end of the trip, audience members were in tears, feeling queasy, or speechless.

This piece of theatre rendered history present in a powerful and inventive way. Among those most affected were the Japanese. Tatsuo Kaneshita could only utter in soft tones “susume suru no wa mutzukashi [it is difficult to say anything].” He regretted that the Japanese people as a whole had not come to terms with wartime atrocities. He believed that they simply felt sorry and then chose to forget it all. Tatsuo noted, however, that the Nanjing piece made a lasting impression and could not be easily forgotten.

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Is it possible to create community out of thin air? How do you make a group with disparate cultural backgrounds feel some sense of common purpose – to gel, so to speak? The Asian Contemporary Theatre Collaboration was a bold experiment aimed at addressing these questions, though it was not without heartache and difficulties.

Everybody got along and yet they did not. Moments of deeply felt differences spliced the intense solidarities formed. Cultural divides were not easily bridged and egos not easily accommodated. Ken Takiguchi of the Japan Foundation in Kuala Lumpur feels that many more experiments such as this are needed before the means of doing inter-cultural work becomes self-evident.

Importantly, the project put into practice what is easy to theorise but hard to realise: recognising differences and accepting them through dialogue. Through theatre, the project showed the possibilities and challenges of belonging across national boundaries, of assuming a credible transnational self.

So many possibilities were explored during the collaboration, some made real and others not. The journey was not the happy fantasy by which multiculturalism is often sold to the public by various parties. Yet each time a possibility was realised, community was created on uncharted territory. One more step was taken towards realising another Asia.

 

Sumit Mandal is an historian at the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, and a contributing member of the Advisory Board of Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia.

This article was first published in the Malaysian monthly magazine Off the Edge in May 2005.

 

 

Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia 8 (March 2007)
© Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University

 

The Players: Citizens of Another Asia

Ranging from their early thirties to their mid-forties, all the members of the collaboration are well known mid-career directors in their respective countries. Almost half have had no formal training in theatre. All but a handful are widely travelled performers with richly varied aesthetic styles and life experiences. Mostly urban based, the members of the group actively speak at least nine languages and dialects: Tagalog, Japanese, Malay and Indonesian, Javanese, Mandarin, English, Thai, and Hokkien.

To see W.S. Dindon perform is to watch contemporary dance, at least at first glance. The Jakarta-born performer however does not claim to be a dancer but an actor. In terms of his art, he brought to the collaboration an intense and even frenetic energy which he often expressed and harnessed through movement. He is much influenced by the music and theatre traditions of India where he stayed for a time. At the same time he possesses a deep and unconventional intellectual sensibility which is grounded in the search for social justice.

Rodolfo Vera packs a depth of knowledge and experience as an actor and writer – including years of working with the Philippines Educational Theater Association (PETA) – counterposed by a raucous and cheeky laugh that screams out spontaneously from time to time. When assuming the role of playwright, Rody typically puts a considerable effort into research. One of the few singers in the group, this Manila-born actor was sought for leadership and clarity whenever things went awry.

Whenever he fell silent on stage, Nam Ron brought out a compelling intensity which, like much of his acting, seemed to flow from him so naturally. One could not tell to what the silence would lead. Was he a child rapist or a man struggling with his convictions? Off and on stage, Nam Ron faced new challenges to his person and faith with a transparent honesty. Born in Kangar in the north of the Malaysian peninsula, in the collaboration he found a space outside of his society’s grip for his naturally independent and out of step creativity.

Singapore-born Ivan Heng’s characters often cannot help but be an overwhelming presence given the fabulous cheer, energy and gesticulations he gives to them. It is a wonderful trait in large ensemble scenes as others can play off him productively. With performance stints from India to New Zealand he is one of the most widely travelled of the group. The focus and discipline in his professional life gives way to an infectious liveliness and warmth after work.

Bangkok-born Narumol Thammapruksa, or Kop as she is called, has been for many years deeply involved in a variety of collaborative efforts within Southeast Asia and worldwide. A bouncy, spirited, and yet contained figure on stage, she can shift comfortably from the graceful or even light to the serious. Like other young women struggling to maintain their professional identities, Kop works hard to be committed to her art and society after her own vision, rather than the claims made by society.

Takeshi Kawamura is zany on stage, offering unexpected bursts of physical and verbal energy. He can speak in a rapid staccato in such a manner as to affect a spectacular madness. In this state, his arms and head scatter like a wooden puppet gone out of control. Born in Tokyo, Takeshi defines himself against Japanese notions of cultural restraint and formality, making his personal feelings quite transparent to others. The collaboration offered him outrageous comrades from outside his own country and experience.

Driven by the spoken word and physicality, New York-born Josh Fox offers a self-possessed and strong presence on stage. He has been dedicated to inter-cultural theatre for some years, having established with others a transnational theatre company. While he expresses his emotions easily on and off-stage, in life he is a mixture of confidence, anxiety and sensitivity framed or perhaps held back, by his heavy, horn-rimmed spectacles. The politically-committed Josh has been working hard to express himself as an American artist against the warring mission of the White House at the turn of the century.

Born in Kuala Lumpur, Jo Kukathas is a versatile actor who makes the transition between the humorous and the serious with ease. Her involvement in this project follows from the earlier Malaysia-Japan collaborative work Pulau Antara (The Island in Between). She explores her art more deeply on this occasion, having expended much energy in Malaysia fighting censorship and authoritarian politics. A widely-read and thoughtful person off-stage, Jo has worked hard to incorporate a woman’s voice in what has been an overwhelmingly male collaboration.

Azuzan J.G. was born in Pematang Siantar in northern Sumatera. While his tall lanky self is most comfortable in quiet and meditative roles as well as graceful movements, he transforms himself easily into a character born out of the cacophony of urban life. He brought to the collaboration his knowledge of a number of performance traditions of the Indonesian archipelago. Azuzan has been active in social movements seeking a more democratic Indonesia before and after the end of authoritarian rule under Suharto in 1998.

Loh Kok Man was born in Kuala Lumpur and is a versatile performer on stage, with strengths in movement and physical expression. He is neither too shy nor self-involved to try new roles and styles even if it means making mistakes. Having travelled widely on his own and to some extent as a performer, he comes to the collaboration keen to learn, exchange ideas and explore theatre beyond his Malaysian experience. Kok Man is ever so curious in gentle ways about many things and deeply contemplative.

Singapore-born Haresh Sharma shies from the stage, preferring instead to write as well as direct. His tall lanky presence in combination with his striking eyes and hands altogether constitute a figure who is somewhat mysterious. One’s curiosity is exacerbated by the unflappable look he possesses. Having explored much socially-committed theatre in the past, Haresh now writes about existentialism, spirituality, morality and other more introspective themes. He was important as an intelligent, sensitive and effective mediator throughout the collaboration.

Rochmad Tono was born in Jakarta and cuts an intense figure on stage. He makes his presence felt in performance with a strong voice and graceful movements often packaged in machismo and a forced casual air. The faint but real possibility of an emotional outburst lends an element of danger to him. One of the least travelled and youngest in the group, Tono comes to the collaboration curious and excited about its cosmopolitan composition and ambitions.

Trained in Thai dance traditions, Bangkok-born Pradit Prasartthong’s movements can have a studied gracefulness. Tua, as he is usually called, happily breaks away from the form when necessary to play a range of characters, often with a folksy undertone. He is committed to his work despite the incurable impishness and prankster in him. While he dislikes doing art premised at the outset on social and political issues, he keeps his commitments close to his heart when working.

Joséfina Estrella was born in Manila. Although she shied from acting during the collaboration, she left a strong impression the few times she took to the stage. She spoke and moved her small body in powerfully suggestive ways whether she played the sexy temptress or hardworking maid. She was focussed and clear-sighted about her goals during the collaboration as well as collegial and supportive when working in groups.

Tatsuo Kaneshita was born on Hokkaido Island in northern Japan and chooses to write and direct rather than perform. Nevertheless, he played a number of characters with aplomb during the workshops, mastering the role of the tall, mysterious and quietly expressive man of a few words. Tatsuo’s theatre and social worlds was for the most part confined to Japan until the collaboration. From not speaking or hearing a word of English, he now does a bit of both. Moreover, he expresses a strong desire to visit Southeast Asia and learn more about the region.

Manila-born Herbert Go plays in the world of the stage with utter seriousness, though one would not necessarily detect this at first glance. He unpacks himself on stage in bold and innovative ways, rendering himself alternatively funny and vulnerable. Herbie is one of the most popular teachers at the National Arts Council’s High School of the Arts (in Makiling) where every year some thirty students are picked from all over the Philippines to be educated on full scholarships. He was important in fostering dialogues between people during discussion with gentle insistence and a funky sense of humour.