Wednesday December 13, 2006
Real stories
By BRIGITTE ROZARIO
The audience at The Actors Studio at BSC was not the usual group of people at plays staged in Kuala Lumpur. Instead of the arty crowd, there were nuns, aunties and uncles (from the lower income bracket, not just the middle and upper brackets), teenagers, working adults, families from the expatriate community, and even an archbishop.
You couldn’t have found a more unusual mix in one place.
Although, seeing as the play was staged by residents of Welcome Community Home (which houses people with HIV/AIDS), it was not surprising to have such a mix of ages, races, professions and income groups in the audience.
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Harjit (right) in the final scene in Fallen Leaves where residents at the hospice are treated with dignity and compassion. |
It started out as merely a project by Welcome and Cloudbreak, a creative skills development centre, to help the residents raise their self-esteem using creative methods.
However, the result of the pilot project was so good, it was decided that a play would be staged.
The play did not have a script. The “script” came from the residents themselves; the stories told within the play are real stories that have come from the residents of Welcome.
The play was made up of four stories with four men relating tales to the audience.
Enter, stage right
In the first scene, The Poison Arrow, Roslan tells us about his work in the hospital and how his world fell apart the day he was transferred to the HIV/AIDS ward. That marked the beginning of the end of his humanity.
Roslan acknowledges that he should treat the patients in that ward more humanely but because of his fear he often treated them as objects – to be cleaned and moved around. And often he did so without any gentleness or care. His guilt consumes him and his fear gnaws at his humanity.
The next scene, Fools Hill, sees Ridzuan sitting alone on a hill. Prompted by his friend Khairul, Ridzuan reveals what he has done. His uncle, who was dying of AIDS, gave him some branded clothes. They were clean, washed and pressed, and although Ridzuan loved branded goods, he ended up burning them. His fear of AIDS caused him to burn the clothes.
His uncle, deeply hurt by his actions, calls Ridzuan a fool for not knowing how the disease spreads. Now that his uncle has passed away, Ridzuan regrets his actions and for allowing fear to control him.
In the third scene, Wall of Trees, Arul remembers his childhood. His mother worked as a maid for the “mat salleh” couple in the big house. Although the family lived on the compound of such a big house, they lived in poverty and Arul often went without food.
One day, the couple killed someone and then committed suicide. Arul and his family stayed on in the house. But his mother later showed erratic behaviour and Arul ended up staying away from her.
When he became addicted to drugs, it was his mother who stood by him.
In the fourth story, Outside Inside, Harjit talks about life as it happens in the hospice where he lives. People come and go and one even dies peacefully in his sleep.
He explains how it is there – sometimes when people come to live at the hospice they are full of self-pity and ask what is the point of eating when they’re going to die anyway.
But the hospice – its carers and residents – has a way of watering down the self-pity and giving the newcomers a fresh perspective on their lives.
The play ends with all the actors on the stage giving the audience a glimpse of life in the hospice where people are treated like people – with dignity, love and compassion.
The human element
The play did not move me to tears and it did not have the poignancy of a Hallmark movie, but it made me think. In fact, the stories told by each of the four men keep playing in my mind.
It makes you question how you treat people. It reminds you that being able to maintain your dignity even up till the hour of your death is so important.
While the acting was raw, and a lot of the play consisted of monologues, the stories certainly got your attention.
It was also refreshing to see real people on the stage instead of seasoned actors. It would be tough for anyone to get up on stage and act, let alone be up there for 15 minutes going through a monologue.
The beauty of Fallen Leaves was not only in the stories, but also that the people on stage were brave enough to stand before an audience to bare their souls.
Kudos to the Fallen Leaves team and director Brian Jones who helped extraordinary people tell some pretty extraordinary stories.
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