ABSTRACT

The 1985 production of Kee Thuan Chye’s 1984 Here and Now , which played in Kuala Lumpur over five nights to packed houses under the scrutiny of Special Branch police, was seen as a ‘rare event’ in Malaysian theatre because it dared to criticise governmental policies openly. Reviewers regarded the play, the first English-language agit-prop drama to be staged in the country, as both courageous and foolhardy in its criticism of the systematic privileging of the Malay community against Chinese, Indian and other minority populations, particularly since the race riots of 1969. In the wake of these riots, following a 1972 amendment prohibiting the public discussion of racial inequities, such ‘sensitive’ material was, and still is, generally expunged from Malaysian theatre, either by the licensing authority or, pre-emptively, by playwrights themselves. As one reviewer noted, ‘Thuan Chye has presented a play that would normally have transformed itself into something else by severe self-censorship. It is rare here to come across a matter we discuss every day expressed in art. This play calls a spade a spade’ (Ten 1987: 93). Why 1984 Here and Now was granted a licence despite its explicit political content remains something of a mystery though there is little doubt that its controversial tenor contributed to its boxoffice success.