According to the guidelines stipulated by the venerable DBKL vetting committee, any script submitted to them will receive a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer within 14 days. This means that Five Arts Centre (FAC), who submitted the script for Election Day on December 22 last year, should have received their answer latest by January 5. They didn’t hear anything for another 22 days, that is 36 days after submitting the script.

Rehearsals had alreday begun on Jan 8 with Cameronian Best Actor winner Jo Kukathas and Cameronian Lifetime Achievement Award winner Krishen Jit. Meanwhile, the publicity for the play couldn’t wait, so they have started sending out press releases to papers, magazines and websites. On Jan 20, the posters and postcards came out.

Seven days later FAC were verbally informed that the performing license had been denied. The letter was to come later. When it did, it said that the play failed six out of the eight guidelines, though it didn't say which six.

Five Arts Centre had prepared an appeal letter in advance, and this was sent out immediately the following day, cc-ed to various governmental departments, including the Prime Minister's office and the Mayor's office. The letter explained, among other things, that the play had been given permit for performance before (in 1999, also around the time of the general elections then) and is even available in print at bookshops.

The day after being notified of the rejection, on January 28, FAC producer Marion D'Cruz went to the DBKL office to meet with Encik Saringat, the Director of DBKL’s licensing department, and Tuan Haji Salleh Yusuf, the Deputy Director General. At this meeting, Marion was given back the script with words highlighted. Words such as Dr.M, Dr Wan Azizah, Guardian Pharmacy, Volkswagen and Ampang Jaya. Apparently, these are the words that caused the play to be banned.

The next morning, Krishen Jit, FAC administrator Chung Wei, publicist Mark Teh and Fahmi Fadzil, went with Marion to the DBKL office. Krishen explained, this really affects our rezeki, money has been spent, and DBKL was late with its reply. The two DBKL men kept saying that now is not the correct time for talking about such things ('now' meaning with the general elections around the corner, 'such things' meaning the general elections; in other words, you can't talk about the general elections around the general elections...). However, they gave two options: Continue to do the play as is, and send in an appeal letter (and almost be certain to expect a ‘no’ again, they hinted without saying), or revise the script.

Five Arts Centre went back, asked Huzir Sulaiman what he thinks of it, and the playwright said okay, he will revise. He then changed phrases like, "Long live Dr.M!" to "Long live Visionary Leader!"

The second script went in on Wednesday February 4 and DBKL promises an answer by the end of the day. There is now only eight days left to opening night. But they didn’t get their answer that evening. The following day was Thaipusam, so no news too. On Friday, Marion called only to be informed that Encik Saringat is away for a two day briefing meet about the actual imminent general elections...

During the weekend, the people at Five Arts prepared themselves for alternative means of staging the play.

On Monday morning, Mark Teh went to the DBKL office at nine in the morning and sat till lunch time when he was taken over by Marion. Prior to receiving the verbal ‘no’, Marion had been making her larger than life presence felt regularly within the DBKL office, enquiring for updates with a sense of urgency even as she smiles her famously winning smile. In fact, she had been dealing with them on these matters since 1984 when they were first formed, so they are not strangers to one another. During that Monday afternoon, the staff kept saying to Marion, please please go back, we'll call you, but Marion just said, "It's okay, I'll wait for the answer." No, please go back, we'll - "It's okay, I'll wait."

At 4:30pm that day, three days before opening night, they said to Marion, it's okay, you can do your play. Not content with the verbal 'yes' Marion asked for the slip of paper that approves their show. But they told her, don't worry, just go ahead.

I suppose all these back and forth over a play does indicate one thing: a playwright is a major headache to the powers that be. The government is probably concerned that the play might actually make people think about the nature of elections, and actually start thinking for themselves, instead of just letting politicians tell them what to do: Woi, undi sama gua lah! Okay, gua undi sama lu lah!

Mark Teh says that they have been frazzled. People who have started booking for tickets have been frustrated that they cannot purchase. Newspapers have been unwilling to publish their stories because they don’t know whether the play is gonna be on or not. And even now, some papers remained unconvinced by the verbal ‘yes’, leaving Mark in a quandary. And it's gonna be tough for Jo Kukathas to try to memorise the revised script at such short notice.

A few individuals in the arts community are also concerned that Five Arts’s giving in to the dictates of DBKL will set a bad precedent, causing DBKL to assume they can get away with asking writers to change their scripts. They believe that Five Arts Centre should fight, or “go to town with the story.”

When Instant Café Theatre was banned last year, letters were written to the press. The mayor overturned the ban, asking KL-ites to be more open-minded. But he subsequently sort-of recapitulated by saying that there are things we should be careful about saying. And then came the DBKL guidelines for performance, which say that plays cannot mention real persons or places, as well as criticise royalty and government. A committee was formed by members of more established theatre companies like Five Arts Centre, Instant Café Theatre and Dramalab to dialogue with DBKL. But according to Mark Teh, the relationship with DBKL has been regressive. “The word ‘dialogue’ has been bandied around a lot,” he says, “but there is really no dialogue at all.”

Understandably, Five Arts has spent money on this venture and making back is a concern. But Marion D’Cruz’s answer to me, when I put to her the concerns of the aforementioned individuals in the arts community, was: “Come and see the play. Look at what we have done in the performance and outside the performance. And there will be clarity. The whole thing is not as simple as we doing what they asked us to do. There is deep strategy involved. Come and see the play and it will be clear.”

Election Day is running at The Actors Studio Bangsar from Wednesday Feb 12 to Saturday Feb 28.

Long live visionary artists!