Prickly odd couple
Thirty years on, The Actors Studio is restaging its first production, Norm and Ahmed. Subhadra Devan gets the lowdown on this extraordinary play from director Joe Hasham
NORM And Ahmed, a play that explores alienation, race relations and cultural differences, was the first time an Australian play premiered in Malaysia back in 1989.
The Alex Buzo classic, written in 1968 when the White Australian Policy was in force, was banned in three Australian states but is today part of its senior school curriculum.
Norm And Ahmed revolves around an encounter between an urban, middle-aged blue-collar Aussie “bloke” and former Vietnam war veteran called Norm and an articulate young Pakistani man, Ahmed, living in Australia to attend university.
It is midnight and the streets are deserted. Suddenly, a stranger lurches from the shadows and asks you “Got a light?” What do you do? The 50-minute performance will have you on the edge of your seats, states The Actors Studio production notes.
PERSPECTIVE MATTERS
The Actors Studio’s artistic director Joe Hasham acted in the 1989 production as Norm along with Mustafa Noor as Ahmed. Says the 70-year-old, who set up The Actors Studio with wife Datuk Faridah Merican in 1984: “In Australia, Norm was the hero but in Malaysia then, Ahmed was the hero. Buzo had come for the Malaysian premiere, and he thought he had written an entirely different play!”
In teaching notes, Buzo wrote of the Malaysian production that “many in the audience had relatives who had studied in Australia. For them, the play was a background to letters home and the audience response was the most emotional and expressive I have seen in the piece’s long history.
“It was first performed in Sydney in 1968, and Joe Hasham had been an usher for that production. He would have been cast as Ahmed in any Australian production but in Malaysia, he played Norm to Mustafa Noor’s Ahmed, who was turned by the audience into the main character.
“The premise of the play — ‘never underestimate the power of difference’ — certainly held up, even though dramatically it was stood on its head.”
WEALTH OF TALENT
Now in the directorial seat for the play, Hasham says: “There is no change in the very Australian dialogue. We thought about changing it to fit a local audience but it just wouldn’t work. In 1989, the audience got the story, and within the programme was a glossary of Australian terms.”
This time around, the cast boasts Australian actor Kingsley Judd as Norm while local actor Phraveen Arikiah will be playing Ahmed. Judd is no stranger in the Malaysian theatre scene, having done three productions with The Actors Studio in Kuala Lumpur, including the critically acclaimed Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me back in 2012.
The multi-talented Phraveen has made his mark in Terence Toh’s Parallel, which won him the Best Male Lead Actor award at the Short + Sweet Musical Malaysia 2016 festival, and Mahsuri (And Other Peculiar Tales): A New Musical by Liver & Lung Productions (2016), which secured the award for Innovation In Musical Theatre at the 14th BOH Cameronian Arts Awards.
Like the 1989 staging, the play will be preceded by a 30-minute poetry reading and song segment. Back on stage are some of the personalities involved in the 1989 staging, including Dr Wan Zawawi Ibrahim, Sandra Sodhy, Sukania Venugopal and Leow Puay Tin.
Joining them on stage for the KL staging are Amelia Tan, Ian Chow, Mark Beau de Silva, Omar Ali and spoken word artist Sheena B. A different line up will be featured in Penang for this segment.
RELEVANT WORK OF ART
True to Hasham’s minimalist trademark, the set for Norm And Ahmed will boast a bench, a lamp post and a rubbish bin. “The entire show hinges on the actors’ delivery, milking each line to the greatest effect possible,” says Hasham, who is also the artistic director of The Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPaC) and the Performing Arts Centre of Penang (Penangpac). “Malaysia is not free from bigotry and racism, so there is a lot of relevance today. There is a homoerotic undercurrent in the play, and we are not ignoring it but taking it a step further. I think audiences are more accepting of this today, compared to before. And the actors are handling it quite well,” he says.
Hasham feels the themes of the 90-minute play will entertain and educate audiences. “The play is a work of art, not reality: a study of humanity and the difference between truth and point of view, rather than a political drama.
“Hopefully, the audience will recognise themselves and others, and empathise with the characters. Perhaps there will be an awakening of sorts when they leave the play,” he says.
Norm And Ahmed is part of a host of works presented in conjunction with TAS’ 30th anniversary celebrations. Other works to look forward to include Marina Tan’s play Transitions, starring Faridah, and Thunderstorm, which will be restaged in Chinese.