Bringing Malay theatre online: An interview with Fezhah Maznan

In a first-of-its-kind collaboration, Teater Ekamatra and long-time theatre producer Fezhah Maznan team up to bring you four Malay plays right in your homes. A play a month from May to August, Baca Skrip: #_ is a series of online script-reading sessions of Malay plays written by four prolific playwrights: Irfan Kasban, Noor Effendy Ibrahim, Aidli Alin Mosbit, and Alfian Sa’at . These plays, all which have been performed before, have contributed significantly to the Malay theatre scene in Singapore.

AKAR spoke to Fezhah on her experience producing for a virtual audience for the first time.

Did you have to recreate the plays for them to be read online live?

Initially, I was looking at these works being read as-is. Simple, no fuss, especially when there are already so many works being pushed out from everywhere, and there’s fatigue from being in front of the screen the whole day. But when we started working on Baca Skrip: #_, the playwrights decided to take the time to revise their scripts and even to direct, which is personally very encouraging. The audience seems to also appreciate it as the performance is designed to engage the audience intimately.

Fezhah’s desk setup for rehearsal. Photo credit: Fezhah Maznan

Why were the four plays chosen?

These works were chosen as one cannot not mention them, nor the playwrights, when recounting the history of contemporary Malay theatre in Singapore. In one way or another, from controversies to winning awards, these works have caused ripples in the Malay and artistic communities. It has also been a while since they were last staged/read, and since we have to stay at home, I thought it was an opportune time for us to sit together and (re)consider these plays. How well do they resonate today? How far have we journeyed as a community in addressing these issues?

These works were written when the playwrights were in their early 20s or even younger but already, you can notice the foundations of their artistic ‘stamps’. That was the most exciting part for me when reading these works again, especially now that I am older and have been following their work for almost two decades.

Additionally, there is very little effort in documenting the work done in Singapore Malay theatre so revisiting these works also help to record a slice of our history.

What was it like producing for the digital platform? What was one challenge you faced?

I have been producing in various contexts for a while now and to be honest, producing a work digitally is a completely new terrain for me. There’s a lot of uncertainty. I remember how when we opened last month, I was SO nervous. Mainly because even though we had put in more than 15 hours of rehearsal, we were still at the mercy of technology. Will the Internet connection drop? What if something fails and we cannot troubleshoot because not everyone in the team has the technology know-how? Will something go horribly wrong and the camera won’t turn on? True enough, minutes before we opened Hantaran Buat Mangsa Lupa, the surtitlist was seeing blanks on her screen. So we had to quickly work around that.

 In a way, we were prepared to fail because we’re still learning. When we set out on this project, one of our aims was to experiment with the digital platform. So the uncertainty may be overwhelming – the possibility of the show having to stop was quite high! – but this is only happening because we’re just getting to know the medium. I am confident (foolishly or not) that this will only get better with time and lots of practice!

Running the show during Baca Skrip:#HantaranBuatMangsaLupa. Photo credit: Fezhah Maznan

One of the challenges in creating a work for the virtual platform is how more isolating it can be. For those who have experienced ‘live’ theatre, one can’t help but to compare. There are people swearing off works created digitally because it’s not theatre. So, we have been experimenting on how to make this gathering less isolating.  From ‘clocking’ the audience when they first enter to constantly engaging folks in the chat box, these are little gestures to make people feel at ease.

What do you think audiences gain from watching an online reading of the play?

In Baca Skrip: #_, each reading will be accompanied by the original text as well as its translation. Audience members can read, listen to the reading or immerse themselves by watching the actors. There are many ways to experience the session. Coming out of the first edition, something else that audience members appreciated was that they were able to get comfortable lying down in their own spaces. We also recommend audience members to put on their earphones, dim their lights and maybe put on a diffuser or scented candles. I think these details make a difference when we watch a performance in the same space that we work, live and chill.

On the other hand, what elements of theatre would audience members miss out?

Like every digital theatre content that has been pushed out since March, we are all missing the ‘liveness’ of performances. Watching a ‘live’ performance online is definitely not the same as watching it face to face. But I think we need to stop making this comparison. Until we can meet and gather again, we do need to think of ways to keep on working meaningfully, not only to keep our audience engaged but also because there are many people whose livelihoods depend on it.

The upcoming session will be Baca Skrip: #AnakMelayu written by Noor Effendy Ibrahim on 26 June. Get your tickets at https://anakmelayu.peatix.com/.

Read more about the first session, Baca Skrip: #HantaranBuatMangsaLupa, here.