“THE inner beauty of this creation is surpassed by no other of God's  creations. This wonderful gift God gave the Earth is caring, sweet, compassionate, loving, kind, and understanding. But don't let the softness fool you ... this creation is very strong and has the ability to do anything, and can be firm, when needed, to get the job done!

This magnificent wonder can even bring new life into the world! This amazing creation can calm cries of sorrow with a little hug, and ease pain with a simple kiss. Of all of God's creations ... this is by far the best!”

The prologue of F For Female is enough to make any woman feel a little God-like. There can’t be many women (and men) who do not appreciate the glorification of all woman-kind, even if one knows that its an essentializing of women that many who believe in equal rights for women would reject outright.

When the play further promises “To show that women's rights in Malaysia can only be achieved when everyone, including women, start respecting each other for who they really are”, ears will perk up.

Sounds fair enough, right?

Unfortunately, after the prologue, it was very difficult to see how F For Female related at all to women’s presence in society.

The first of the short plays in the double bill, titled Anything For Love, was directed by Zachary Wong. It tells the story of two women fighting over the same man. Elizabeth, played by Pat Chan, is married to David, whilst the Datin, played by Adrina Badri, is an old girlfriend who dumped David for a Datuk. Elizabeth and David are now secretly broke, but allow the Datin to believe that David is a successful designer, in order to coerce the Datin into placeing a RM4000 order with him. The Datin, meanwhile, secretly wants to make David fall back into love with her, and is willing to pay that much for a dress so he can see her looking beautiful.

There is more. Elizabeth and Datin’s inner voices are personified by two actors, Farina Ariffin and Sherry Abdullah respectively. The women exchanged sarcastic dialogue with one another, whilst their inner voices stand in the background, reminding them to bait one another. Although the concept of having characters’ thoughts come alive is an interesting one, in Anything For Love the inner voices seem to serve no purpose other than to portray the bitchiness of women.  One would imagine that the device of an inner and outer self is there to show two different, perhaps even conflicting sides of each character. Here however, the characters remain one-dimensional, and the device seems an exercise in pointlessness.

So what happens in the play? Not much really. The women drink tea, eat cakes, talk about fashion, and plot against each other. The play ends with the inner voices crying out how much they love David, believing that they have triumphed over one another. Elizabeth has managed to secure RM4000 from the Datin, without revealing that David is, in fact, not successful, while the Datin believes that she has cleverly coerced Elizabeth into allowing her to see David.

Now, what about  womens' issues here? Isn’t this the worst stereotype about women -- that women are petty, superficial and “their own worst enemy”? There was nothing to make one feel that women must learn to understand and respect each other, as the prologue suggest. What we see of their inner voices does nothing to redeem their outward persona. Not that characters in a play need to have redemptive qualities, but neither should an audience member be subjected to more gender stereotypes under the guise of celebrating women.

Indeed the publicity material of the plays suggest as much when it says that it will demonstrate that the thing hampering women’s rights in Malaysia is women’s maltreatment of each other.

Of course! How stupid we’ve been to blame the patriarchal system, and the misogynism embedded, for centuries, in institutions such as culture, religion, language etc. for the inequality that women have had to overcome.

If not for the lack of comedic timing and the awkward pauses between lines, the play could have been a very funny skit. As it stood, it was not funny, nor did it enlighten in any way, as promised.

The next play on the bill, Infant, written by Fariza Ariffin and directed by Sherry Abdullah, though at least a bit more juicy than Anything For Love, was painful to watch

It tells the kind of story that horror film-makers and novelist love -- a victim kidnaps her tormentor (or her tormentor’s lawyer) to exact revenge.

Fariza’s character is a prostitute that was kidnapped by her “boyfriend”, David  and held captive for 20- something days during which she was constantly tortured and gang-raped. Despite the heinous nature of the crime, it is easy for David’s lawyer, played by Fadzrina Ariffin, to convince the judge and jury that a prostitute’s testimony counts for nothing. The lawyer constantly refers to the implausibility of the idea that a prostitute can be raped. “You’re a just a whore!” she constantly shouts.

Despite the painful dialogue (“Just let me go, please let me go!”), the play does actually touch on  society’s views of gender, and sexuality. You know, the ‘loose’-woman-with-no-morals scenario that is so common. However, the play skips over this very real problem, in favour of a “shocking” twist that the lawyer is actually the prostitute’s long-lost mother. Blackout.

Well now, hey, isn’t that dandy? A mother-daughter reunion, right before a murder scene.

In the synopsis, the lawyer’s situation is described as her dark past coming back to haunt her. Well in this case it comes back to haunt her in the form of a murderous prostitute. The subtext, except that its not very sub, is that having a child out of wedlock, this dark past, is so morally corrupting, that the sins of the mother are visited upon the child, and then back at the mother. Notice how in these kinds of narratives, the male figure, the father of the child is almost never present,  never held up for judgement.

Or could the misguided message be that if you’re a lawyer, don’t defend a man accused of rape (although, in all fairness he could be innocent, though in this case it was made clear that he was guilty), because the complainant might be your long-lost daughter?

It reduces a social, legal and cultural system that is tipped against women who are sexually abused (both wives and prostitutes have a hard time proving rape in some cases)  into the fault of a female lawyer, who gets her comeuppance.  The legal system gets a free pass, but the lawyer is ‘humiliated’ both professionally, as well as personally -- because her ‘respectability’ is exposed by her loose morals - the dark past - of her youth.

The writers and director of F for Female promised to “make a statement”, but judging from these two plays, something went terribly wrong during the creative meetings at the local mamak. Have none of them seen the inside of a Judith Butler text, or at least read the back-flap?

Everyone is entitled to their personal ideology and views. They can even stage plays that serve up the usual gender stereotypes if they so choose to. But if you’re staking a claim that your play is about women's rights, then you have an obligation to have at least a basic understanding of what the term means. It’s like saying you’re doing a play about animal rights, and then have a monkey in a little waistcoat and hat perform in your play,  before serving shark’s fin soup at intermission.

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Yasmin Zetti Martin writes for Kakiseni.

F For Female ran at The Actors Studio @ BSC, from Thu 27 - Sun 30 Mar 2008 (Thu - Sat: 8.30pm; Sat & Sun: 3pm). Read the 60-second Plug on F for Female here.