brouhaha

"Kalau inilah realiti yang akan ditunjukkan oleh orang-orang yang keluar dari menara gading, saya betul-betul sedih."

I would say that this is the reality shown not by future graduates. But this IS the reality shown by several groups within the Malay community itself, and these groups traverse various educational levels, especially those in the lower rungs of the educational ladder. We have seen our fellow Malays in such revealing tops in the streets (an obvious sign of the infiltration of Western influence), and we shake our heads each time. Or we write in to the local newspaper. Meaning we are not ready to accept this culture into our own.

So we had our play to ask this question to our audience. We shall present to you a non-mainstream culture, somthing that the society calls 'a problem'. We present this problem to you in the perspective of the affected problem individual himself (or herself). We are probing you, our Malay community, with these problems. We are not offering solutions (in response to the first article which is hoping the play would unearth solutions for such problems). We believe offering solutions will be rather limiting and restrictive and will undermine the whole idea of theatre, which is suppose to probe questions and awareness and perhaps, reveal some understanding. In that sense, giving solutions would be to cheat our audience. And who are we to give solutions? Anyway, back to the problem, the answer as to whether our community can accept such cultures is now apparent. The answer is no (since we are still so concerned about dressing!). Or maybe not yet. Or maybe, never. I'm not saying it is a bad thing that we do not accept such things. Maybe never is better for our society.

The point is, I think ultimately it is good that we are discussing these issues. If this is the effect achieved for the rest, then I believe we have achieved some form of success just from our publicity of the production itself, even though it is achieved via controversial means.

However, sometimes we do get ahead of ourselves. And failure to take a step back to see the bigger picture may lead to disastrous outcomes. I think it is a valid comment that we observe tata-susilah and also kesopanan pakaian even though we want to throw a burning controversial social issue at society, in our pursuit of theatre. I think we could have exercised more restraint but we didn't hold back. Sometimes in theatre, one cannot hold back, but in other areas, one should learn to not take a step too far. I guess then this as a lesson for everyone?

"Buatlah sesuatu yang boleh dijadikan ikutan dan contoh yang baik sesuai dengan ilmu yang dimiliki."

I can agree with this statement. Here I hope what I have offered you as my take on the brouhaha as something that is 'sesuai dengan ilmu yang dimiliki'.