Sus, Mr. Shakespeare

Sus, Mr Shakespeare

What The Fire Didn’t Destroy -  All The Perfumes.

If We Shadows Do Offend.

A woman on stage alone. Shadows. A phone call. A mysterious stranger.

A rehearsed reading of All The Perfumes, a lost play by K Das found in a box by his daughter Jo Kukathas, followed by a conversation about things lost and found.

All The Perfumes written by K Das and directed by Syed Alwi was performed  for the first and only time in 1968. It was the first play created for the Malaysian Arts Theatre Group following their coup where they wrested MATG away from its British committee campaigning on a platform of No More Shakespeare No More Shaw.

K Das and Syed Alwi met in the 1960s when they were both working at the Malayan Film Unit. Their friendship developed at RTM where they both worked writing and directing radio dramas. Das had newly returned from the University of Melbourne with a degree in English Literature after throwing in the towel on a degree in Engineering. Syed Alwi had just returned from completing a degree in Film from the University of Minnesota. They found in each other kindred spirits with a love of literature, theatre and wayang.

It was the discovery of two typewritten drafts of  his play All The Perfumes that led Jo to want to investigate What The Elders Left Us. Working with her friend Tan Cher Kian they have discovered what you can find The More We Get Together.

An investigation into friendships, art making and Shakespeare.

The Need to… what?  A reading from The Need to Be by Patrick Yeoh but not the way he wrote it.

Another early play from the MATG vaults, this play by Patrick Yeoh opens with a woman on stage ironing. She is a laundry woman working in a KL slum. 

Jo Kukathas is an actor, writer, dramaturg, director, co-founder/Artistic Director of The Instant Café Theatre Company (1989) best known for its political satire where she has played a variety of iconic comedy roles. She has run arts spaces, produced festivals, staged productions and toured/worked in Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, Brazil, Taiwan and Indonesia. She is an API (Asian Public Intellectual) and DDS Fellow (De La Salle Democracy Discourse).