Nadirah

Bought a ticket to see the play Nadirah on Friday night, running at KLPac from now til next Sunday (11/11). I've seen plays by Malaysian playwrights over the years, but not by Singaporean playwrights (at least to my recollection), so I was curious. 

The turnout was pretty good, which could be attributed to...

• First week promo price (RM48),
• Cos it's Friday night,
• Availability of subtitles, or
• People just want to see the Ah Ma from PCK Pte Ltd on stage :P

Unexpectedly bumped into a former classmate, who was also there alone. Since it was free seating, we sat together and chewed the fat a little while waiting for the show to start. Also saw Fahmi Fadzil and (as I thought) Karim Raslan. Google if you don't know who they are.

Set in Singapore, it's about (duh) Nadirah (Ani Juliana Ibrahim), a Muslim of Singaporean Chinese and Malaysian Malay parentage, who has to deal with preaching interfaith relations at school, but at home has to deal with her convert mother (Neo Swee Lin) who wants to marry again, but to a Christian (Patrick Teoh). The kicker is that he is content with his faith and has no intention to convert to Islam. 

Nadirah’s best friend Maznah (Farah Rani), believes that everyone has a right to happiness. Her senior, Farouk (Redza Minhat), however, is outraged and urges her to do ‘the right thing’.

Nadirah is a bilingual play, performed in Bahasa Melayu & English. Alternate surtitles will be provided during the play. (This was from the press about it)

Did you know that in Singapore you can be of different belief systems and still marry (via civil marriage), without anyone converting? What a lovely idea... that will never fly here :P 

I liked the play. What I didn't like was how long it took for them to set things up in between scenes, some probably longer than the following scene. I know it's an open stage and the audience can see the crew (and cast) move furniture for the next scene, but still.

It's about 2 hours long sans intermission, but it was worth it because having a break would definitely ruin the flow. I recommend watching it while it's still on at KLPac. And unless you want to "participate", don't sit in the front rows or the reserved seats you might find.

I don't know if they'll do it for the rest of the run, but it doesn't hurt to stick around for the post-play discussion.

PS. Frankie Foo was also in the audience... in the supportive spouse capacity :P