project
kok man
January 15 - January 21, 2001
Red Bean Soup Reprise
Theatre Production
The monologue Ang Tau Mui by Leow Puay Tin is fast becoming a favorite theatre standard. The play is a rarity because it depicts the marginal life and emotions of an invisible figure in Malaysian theatre --- the working-class woman. Ang Tau Mui, once a red-bean soup seller, once amateur Chinese opera actress and once toilet-cleaner is not a glamorous character who will make the society pages.
Yet the play's poignancy and appeal may have much to do with how it dramatises human anxiety and the struggle of seeking significance and meaning. The monologue has its roots in Leow's first play entitled Three Children, which initiates the theme of cultural breakdown and the individual's modern loss of wholeness. The emergence of the Ang Tau Mui character is taken from Three Children, which was fully developed into a monologue in 1993.
The 1996 performance directed by Krishen Jit with Leow performing the title role and songstress Yudi singing sentimental oldies added another dimension to the play. The songs of Lin Dai, the Chinese chanteuse of yesteryear who is the object of Ang Tau Mui's celebrity fetish, became resonant as the character's own refracted voice.
In 1999, student director Mohd Sobri created a version delving into inter-cultural aesthetics. His clear identification with the injustice that afflicts the character drew him to create a performance that mixed Chinese and Malay cultural symbols and utilised folk songs like Chan Mali Chan to blur racial sympathy, best exemplified by the addition of two mat rockers in Ming caps who are seen enjoying red-bean soup sold by Ang Tau Mui.
Last year, debut director Chee Sek Thim once again reprised the monologue by splitting Ang Tau Mui's voice between three performers. An exciting piece of movement and narrative theatre was produced, revealing the play's multifarious possibilities.
This year, it is Dan Dan Theatre's Loh Kok Man's turn to add his elucidation of Ang Tau Mui. What emerges is yet another completely different staging. Loh's version is a brooding variant that delves into the psychological and internal aspects of the character.
The signature symbol for his interpretation is the veritable patchwork quilt ( oddly enough, in American style ) that functions as a security blanket in Ang Tau Mui's moments of fear and confusion. It is an old, psychoanalytical symbol that establishes childhood trauma of abandonment as the leitmotif to the understanding of the character.
Loh takes a leaf from Chee's page by utilising the three-performer model to stage the narrative, but without being overly concerned with the narrative, but without being overly concerned with the narrative plot and structure. In fact, in many moments the text is repeated as chorus or dream devices that point to the character's many Freudian complexes. The quest for recognition and individuality is at the heart of this performance. At the end, there is an ambiguous closure where the performers utter the refrain: " Ang Tau Mui, ni de jen minzi shi shenma?" ( Ang Tau Mui, what is your real name? )
An ensemble cast comprising Kee chung Phear, Chin Li Ling, Gan Hui Yi and Hee Shiang Yin played in Ang Tau Mui. Clad in white cotton slips and white faces, the performers utilised pseudo-mime movements to invoke a haunting atmosphere. It only partially worked as the choreographed segments felt more like poses rather than truthful, expressive movements.
In fact, the performance was most effective when the actors relied on simple actions to depict Ang Tau Mui's state of mind. Chalk drawings picturing a maze on the floor of the stage and Chin hiding under the quilt were lightweight and literal images but it made obvious symbolic points.
What was visually intriguing about the ensemble was the choice of actors with radically different bodies. There was a diversity that was provocative visually, but it required further exploration and tie-in to the play itself. Devoid of any social commentary, Loh's direction is a contrast to previous ones in this respect as well.
That Leow's play continues to inspire adaptations and interpretations is testament to the manifold qualities manifest in the perceptive writing. Like another theatrical classic Emily of Emerald Hill, Ang Tau Mui, the tale of a very unimportant woman, may ironically be developing celebrity and iconic status.
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