Beyond the stage
New theatre collective focuses on accessibility and sustainability in these challenging times.
SOMETIMES, it takes a global pandemic and a nationwide lockdown for a theatre company to be formed.
Panas Panas Theatre was founded on June 21 after friends and fellow theatremakers Ariff Kamil, 32 and Theatresauce’s Emerging Directors Lab’s alumni Arief Hamizan, 27, Hana Nadira, 34 and Ali Motamedi, 22, came to a bleak conclusion.
“When the pandemic hit, it really made clear to us how vulnerable theatre and theatre workers are to any sort of social or economic disruption.
“We really felt the need to rethink how we made theatre, to make sure that it is actually sustainable in the long run,” recalls Arief, who’s also the company’s artistic director.
With the government’s implementation of the movement control order (MCO) on March 18, the performing arts industry entered a very challenging period.
Theatre venues were losing revenue and theatre companies were struggling to stay relevant.
And the adoption of a digital theatre platform was arguably slow, with only a handful of theatremakers crossing that virtual divide, successfully or otherwise.
“For us, the MCO amplified the structural problems that the theatre industry had been facing previously, like sustainability and accessibility.
“It becomes more pressing then to innovate and reimagine how theatre can provide value to our communities. If not now, then when?” says Arief, whose directing credits include Matahari Jangan Tidure, Nanti Hilang Belang (2019) and Alfian Sa’at’s Madu Dua (2016).
These were conversations the theatre collective’s co-founders were already having even before Covid-19 hit the country. But their “light bulb” moment came when they organised online script readings with their friends during the MCO.
“That inspired us to find more ways of making theatre accessible to a wider audience. And that’s how Panas Panas Theatre started, and what it hopes to do – to develop a theatre practice that is sustainable and inclusive, and to create a space that is accessible even beyond the physical theatre,” explains Arief, who has a law background.
For now, Arief says he and his team are taking things slow, although theatres have been allowed to reopen since July 1, stressing that Panas Panas Theatre is not a production-oriented theatre company.
“We haven’t started out with any plans for full-scale productions. Instead, we’re looking to run programmes that are low-cost but that still allow us to engage with theatre and its ideas.
“In this way, we hope to cultivate a space where theatre can continuously be part of people’s lives, rather than only for the brief weeks of full scale rehearsals and production,” adds Arief.
Currently, the company runs two weekly online script reading sessions, with five to 15 people joining every session from all around Malaysia and Singapore.
The Women’s Play Marathon, which aims to complete 50 plays by women by the end of the year, runs on Tuesdays at 6pm while Main Baca runs on Sundays at 6.30pm.
As a bonus, participants get to converse with the respective playwrights after the reading session.
Panas Panas Theatre is also developing a pilot for an online video series and a Kl-based weekend theatre festival. At press time, no dates have been confirmed.
Ultimately, Arief says he wants his theatre company to be a space where “the joy of theatre can be accessible and inclusive - not just for theatre practitioners who are able to dedicate their time to it, but also to students, working adults, and people who might not even live in cities with theatre communities.”