Susan Philip

Kee Thuan Chye's Political Plays: An Analysis

In Malaysia, most forms of public expression are subject to control in the form of licensing laws and censorship. Despite this, the theatre in English has managed to develop a quite openly critical political voice. One of Malaysia’s most openly and stridently political playwrights is Kee Thuan Chye. This paper traces the trajectory of development in Kee’s political thinking, as evidenced in his four major plays, to show a deeper, more inclusive engagement with the state of the nation.

Embodiment and the Reconstruction of Gender Roles in Leow Puay Tin’s Family

Through an analysis of both the text and performance of Malaysian playwright Leow Puay Tin’s Family, this paper looks at the construction of the family unit in a particular segment of Malaysian society, in order to examine the tension existing between socially and authoritatively imposed gender identities and individuals’ responses to these imposed identities. Individuals within Leow’s fictional family are embodied in specific ways which support and perpetuate patriarchal structures. However, this embodiment is revealed to be groundless and they are therefore forced to reconstitute imposed identities by imagining or living within their bodies differently. The analysis of these issues is enhanced through a study of the production of this play in Kuala Lumpur in 1998, which re-articulated Leow’s vision through unusual and confrontational staging, casting and costuming choices which were able to go further than the text in examining and physicalizing questions about the borders and limits of gender identity.

Women in Asian Performance: Aesthetics and Politics

Indigenous artists increasingly create performance work aimed at Aboriginal audiences without attempting to translate Indigenous culture or language to non-Indigenous audiences. These works significantly ‘resist the notion that Indigenous performance should advance “authentic” or “positive” depictions of Aboriginal people and culture’ (87). As Constantina Bush, King ‘refuses to assimilate to dominant culture by behaving as a “Good Indigenous Citizen”’ and at the same time rejects the idea that Indigenous people should act as social activists’ (102). This influential work opens up a space within which Australian Aboriginal identity can usefully be re-thought in relation to the context of queer feminism. The book contributes significantly to the existing fields of theatre, performance studies, and queer and feminist theory by bringing together a rich theoretical context and a detailed and impassioned account of performances that audiences outside of Australia may not have had a chance to experience. This discussion is framed by contemporary politics in Australia, which persistently brings to the foreground sexism, homophobia, racism, and inequality. In this particularly troubled moment in time, after Donald Trump’s victory and the Brexit vote, this book brings a renewed faith in the ways in which theatre and performance studies can contribute towards change. Although French clearly articulates how this work has been significant in rethinking the current moment in Australia, it would be helpful if the author had explained more robustly what new strategies this work may propose for the field beyond Australia. According to Elisabeth Grosz,

Interlogue: Studies in Singapore Literature, Vol. 6: Haresh Sharma: The Cultural Politics of Playwriting in Contemporary Singapore (review)

oftentimes sinister xipi tunes. It is this level of sophisticated analysis that makes the article a must read for anyone interested in the current challenges and opportunities facing traditional Chinese theatre. Apart from theatre, the collection also includes an article on the novel’s television series in its last section, “Three Kingdoms in Contemporary East Asia.” Written by Junbao Hong, “From Three Kingdoms the Novel to Three Kingdoms the Television Series: Gains, Losses, and Implications” views the enormous commercial success and controversy surrounding the series’s thematic and stylistic inadequacies as a testament to the novel’s undiminished popularity and the power of television as “a main channel to convey traditional and high cultures and [. . .] [its] enormous impact on the evolution of both their format and content” (126). In general, the collection is a captivating, if unbalanced, series of studies on a very important subject of popular Chinese culture. My reservations aside, the collection should prove to be a valuable tool for scholars and students of Chinese and theatre studies.

Diasporic Spaces in K. S. Maniam's The Sandpit: Womensis

This essay looks at Malaysian playwright K. S. Maniams English-language playThe Sandpit: Womensis, and discusses the playwrights portrayal of the individuals negotiations with the tensions inherent in Malaysias multicultural society. Most Malaysians live in tension between the fluid cultural spaces of their lived reality and the rigid, narrowly defined cultural spaces allowed them by public policy. In this play, Maniam embodies the tension between these two cultural spaces through the characters of Santha (who lives within the prescribed cultural borders) and Sumathi (who feels the constraints of these borders and pushes against them). Finally, Maniam suggests that the only solution, tentative at best, is to find some new space where these apparently opposing views can come together.