Malaysian play 'Parah' receives good reviews in Australia

A review by Australian independent online news service Crikey branded the performance directed by Jo Kukathas as a “provocative piece from Malaysia” which explores race and censorship with humour and heart.

The critically acclaimed production explores the themes of identity, belonging and the power of words through the story of four multi-racial Form 5 students who discover a torn page in their text book, Interlok, by national laureate Abdullah Hussain.

“This is a brilliant little piece, performed simply with such endearing good humour by the four actors, that when they finally turn on each other, we wonder if things were ever thus, and if it’s a problem in all multi-cultural societies, especially our own,” wrote the review.

Another review written by Clare Murphy of the Critical Mass blog, “Parah- the true Malaysian solution”, said that Parah presents the Malaysian cultural image in an extremely “crisp and current” manner.

She attributed the success of Parah in Malaysia and outside of it to “so many things”, including:

“(Playwright) Alfian Sa’at’s script that thralls with that difficult-to-achieve thing, an un-preachy brand of education; the confident performance of the actors Iedil Putra (Hafiz), Farah Rani (Melur), Gregory Sze (Kahoe), and Branavan Aruljothi (Mahesh)...”

“The seamless dramaturgy at the direction of Jo Kukathas; the teasing humour that disguises difficult truths; the complexity of characterisation; and most significantly, the Brechtian-reversal maneuvers which immerse the audience in their own relationship with likable characters (good recognisable friends even) that do and say uncomfortable things.”

The author said that by the end of the play, audiences would feel much closer to understanding “what it is like to be and be seen as Indian, Chinese, Malay, Muslim, Hindu, female, the youngest male, an orphan.”

She even noted that Australians could learn about themselves from such theatres about “the convenience of forgetting and the psychological barriers to acceptance.”

Parah was inspired by the late Yasmin Ahmad's final film, Talentime, and the writer, Alfian, is a Singaporean.

It has had a successful run since 2011 in KL Pac, Annexe Gallery and in Drama Centre in Singapore, where the play was title “PARiAH”.

The play centres on the four friends who start questioning their feelings about nation and identity when investigating the contents of Interlok.

The novel, Interlok, had caused a major controversy in 2011 when it was introduced as a literature piece for Form five students, when the inclusion of derogatory words like “black people” and “pariah” caused a furore mainly in the Indian community.