It was a simple tableau. Three unwashed members of the proletariat speaking in Tamil expressing disdain for the previous leaders of the Malayan Indian Congress while they await the arrival of their new helmsman.

 “He will speak English,” says one. “Never mind if you don’t understand what he is saying just clap when everyone else does,” advises the other. To their surprise he speaks their language and they applaud heartily. However nothing in the play indicates if they fully understand what the new leader stands for.  What is clear is that he is speaking "their language" in the most literal sense.

We are made to understand that they are satisfied with his identification with them as a Tamil. His speeches are felt -- much like music is -- not listened to as you would a lecture. In the world of the play, the speaker and listener are bound in a community in which trust is axiomatic (admittedly the lower classes are allowed a fleeting skepticism) and communication, a series of sentimental refrains produced and received.

Billboard Unity: Cut-out, Cut-up, Paste-on, Take Down

Sambathan, the play, based on the life of Tun VT (pronounced “witty”) Sambathan, engaged its real-life audience in much the same way. At one of the low points of the play the audience applauds enthusiastically as Sambathan chairs a cabinet meeting and the Malay subtitles read, “He was Prime Minister for a day”.

My rather "sophisticated" friend sitting next to me shook her head wearily, noting how “sad” the audience's response was. After all we had been told that there was no other senior cabinet minister in attendance so it was not an achievement of any kind. However, the audience was not going to let this stop them from wrenching a moment of pride from this rather banal historical factoid. 

It reminded me of an often repeated post-Hindraf joke with the punch line: “You know they are Indians, because they are naked, have no clothes, have to share one apple between them both and yet think that they are in paradise".

There were a few brief high notes during an evening of concerted monotony. It was played out mainly in the discord between the play’s celebratory intentions and the feelings generated in the audience by really-existing Malaysia. The insinuation of Samy Vellu into the narrative as a “young and credible leader” drew derisive laughter.  The talk of how well represented Indians were in the civil service and how this would increase in the future induced the passing of low murmurs. It passed all too surreptitiously.

I asked someone who worked on the play, but whom I trust as an independent mind, what he thought of the play. He said he was fine with it. Responding to the pained expression on my face he said, “You were expecting theatre but people come here for something else, for information.”


The Star of the Piece, Shining then Leaving

The play, one in a recent series of self-mythologising Malaysian works, stands naked amidst the gaudy spectacle of the current General Elections: rempits rounding neighbourhoods with party flags, bunting rivaling Christmas and Chinese New Year put together; the TV saturated with praise for the incumbent BN or thick with condemnation for something about, or someone from, the main alliance of opposition parties, BA.

At a ceramah held in Brickfields, KL, Anwar Ibrahim spins his theatre for the BA: issues embedded in jokes; policies in anecdotes; with multi-culturalism expressed in multi-lingual greetings and inter-textual referencing.  Anwar’s mimic mode endears him to the crowd (doing Information Minister Zam’s valiant attempt to speak English, and as an Indonesian reporter).

Speaking as himself and of his brutalization when in detention, he reduces the crowd to silence. He also speaks like a lawyer using his favourite phrase “I will adduce the evidence”. The word “adduce” reaches into the crowd, caressing its listener, soothing skeptical thoughts. He is the climax of an evening of demagoguery and good feeling.

I like him best in his dramaturgical mode: he tells the crowd that the mere mention of some words, are enough to get them going. He shows them the theatre in the theatrical moment they are sharing. He tells them that they have buttons to be pushed even while he pushes them. He is a consummate politician.

At another ceramah, I watched him spin the same magic and, despite announcing that the upcoming speakers were the candidates for the area, he took eighty percent of the audience when he departed early. People know when the show is over. 

Along with a handful of politicians, Anwar can claim the mantle as the main event because of his ability to connect with the crowd. But for the most part ceramahs are rather bad theatre; not everyone rehearses, and not everyone has the same script even though they are in the same play.

An unguarded moment of hope?

Lastly, I must note one curious moment (for its potential) that emerged at the Brickfields ceramah that night. Fresh-faced Nurul Izzah, standing against the airbrushed visage of the BN incumbent Sharizat Jalil, finds unwitting use of the TV-like character of the standard video projections that allow audiences a close-up of speakers and happenings on stage. She takes the Indian-styled garland of flowers on her and breathes in deeply, saying very quietly, “harum-nya”. That exquisitely framed intimate close-up of the Nurul brought a register of voice and sentiment I have never heard at a ceramah. Is this the future?

How does one apportion blame when, in attempting to imitate life, art comes across as one-dimensional and trite?