TO have your work watched alongside somebody else’s requires guts. It’s hard enough that most audiences will usually spend the majority of a play comparing it to something they remember vaguely from 300 years ago, but now you’re giving audiences the opportunity to compare your work to another’s side-by-side? It’s inevitable that audiences will choose a favorite, and your little play may be cast to the winds and soon forgotten. Talk about performance anxiety.

In some cases, however, that can be a good thing, as is the case in KLPac’s “Triple Bill: Uncut, Untitled, Paper House, featuring three new plays by three young playwrights.

Johann Lim makes his writing and directorial debut, with his contribution of Untitled

The play tells the story of Ken, who wants to dance. Alfred Loh, playing Ken, conveys this desire by sullenly frowning while constantly declaring that he doesn’t want to be a corporate man. Fang Chyi, as his mother, sullenly frowns back at him as they exchange clichéd, repetitive dialogue.

Amelia Chen’s sister character seems to have been inserted only to provide the comic relief, as the character does little to modify, or modulate the way we see Ken, his mother or the conflict at the centre of the play. Her over-enthusiastic new-age guru wannabe type stopped being funny around the same time slipping on banana peels stopped raising even canned laughter, so it fails even on that level.

In fact the whole subject is just tired. The older generation vs. the new has been washed, and aired, and ironed already. It’s thoroughly worn out. I think we’ve had enough “I want to be me!” scenarios to carry us through to the next decade.

If you are going to trot out yet another misunderstood artist fights narrow minded mother play, then offer us a fresh take at the very least. In Untitled, we get instead an intense half-in-the-shadows-half-in-the-light dance routine from Ken to demonstrate his inner turmoil and desire to break free. Such a scene has the added risk - if not constructed, choreographed and performed well – of making the audience think that maybe Ken is not cut out to be a dancer after all. So, did Alfred Loh nail it? Lets just say it was yawn and giggles at the cliché-ness of it all.

Untitled’s saving grace is the fact that it’s the first play by Johann. It feels more like it belongs where most first efforts do -- in high school, or in The Platform. Staged in a professional space however, the weakness that one might overlook elsewhere - stilted dialogue, formulaic plots -- don’t get off so lightly. Hopefully, when Johann does write his next play, as indeed he should, we’ll see art work that benefits from the staging of Untitled.

Uncut by Teng Ky-Gan

Teng Ky-Gan and his contribution -- Uncut -- sadly fails to redeem Johann’s lack of experience. He takes on the preachy vein, and tells us the story of Zakaria, the fictional Director of the Film Censorship Bureau (try not to curse under your breath). Hafidzuddin Fish Fazil portrays the tormented King of the Moral High-Ground. Ky-Gan has his actor spew endless monologues about the necessity of censorship, and the filth of free-thinking.

Perhaps stuck in musical-mode, Ky-Gan (whos credits include composing and writing for Tunku The Musical and Broken Bridges) appears to have forgotten the timeless law of non-musical theatre: actions speak louder than words. Ky-Gan chooses words, and many words did his characters speak! It would have been a more nuanced play -- and a more challenging role for Fish -- if we were left to ponder over Zakaria’s inner conflict, than be told about it so explicitly.

Aishah Sinclair plays the sexy liberal artist attempting to have the ban on her documentary lifted. Censorship is something every arts person is familiar with, but Ky-Gan’s attempt to portray a person’s struggle between didactic logic and carnal desires is nothing more than a play on stereotypes. A fool can see the ‘twist’ ending a mile away, and Ky-Gan unwittingly portrays the liberal arts movement as nothing more than blackmailing sex sirens eager to play games.

Thank goodness for intermissions.

The break distanced the audience from thez preachy feel of the first act, and allowed us to get on to Mark Beau de Silva’s Paper House with fresh eyes.

Two sisters meet again when Kim (Maybel Chan) returns to the paper doll shop that Yen (Bella Rahim) cares for, at the anniversary of their mother’s death. Yen, the superstitious small-town girl is outraged when Kim, the less superstitious, KL-ite, sister, allows a lost little girl food and shelter in their humble abode. Bella Rahim, portraying Yen, breaks your heart as she slowly brings you to the realization that her deep-rooted superstitions and routine stem from an emotional turmoil that Kim has yet to fully appreciate.

There is a marked difference here between the choices made by Mark and the previous two writer/directors. Mark uses a device Ky-Gan and Johann missed in Directing 101 -- subtlety. Instead of Yen announcing to the audience how much she misses her mother, we are left to discover this in the way Yen refuses to change things for sales’ sake in her mother’s old shop, and defends her ways -- “You think this is a joke, ah?”

Mark’s work is by no means worthy of endless praise, but one cannot help but wish Johann and Ky-Gan had taken notes.

All three plays, however, are marred by the silly set pieces. Boxes that were supposed to serve as multi-purpose tools of imagination were often just in the way. It was annoying to watch the actors move them around. It was distracting enough that the actors were constantly miming props, without being confused as to what box was supposed to be what at different times. If you’re going to mime props, why not go all the way and mime the useless boxes too?

In all, the three seemed not to have any connecting themes or share common directorial ground to lift the Triple Bill beyond a collection of works by three friends bolstering each other up. And much bolstering did they need, though we can only hope these young writer/directors learn from their mistakes.

~

Yasmin Zetti Martin writes Kakiseni.

Triple Bill: “Uncut”, “Untitled”, & “Paper House” runs at Pentas 1, Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre, Sentul Park, Jalan Strachan (Off Jalan Ipoh), Kuala Lumpur, from Fri 14 to Sun 23 March 2008 (Tue - Sat: 8.30pm; Sun: 3pm, NO show on Mon). Tickets cost RM25/15.