This new iteration of Noor Effendy Ibrahim's well-loved physical theatre performance Si Ti Kay, exposes poignant issues but leaves more to be desired.
At first glance, Centre 42's blackbox doubles up as a cage for John Cheah, M. Haja and Siti Z., who holds in place a rope connected to a chunk of cow's lung between her teeth. All three are wearing bondage restraints on their head that prevent their mouths from closing. Yet even in the pre-show segment, Cheah and Haja's intense gaze, reveal that the audience is as much a spectacle as the performers are.
For 45 minutes, the audience watches tender embraces between the two men that escalate into violent tussles; moments of stillness (Cheah lying postrate on the floor in nothing but bright red lingerie) jarred by the slapping of his bare buttocks, sensual movements by Siti that shift into contortions and grunts, think young Regan from Exorcist, minus the projectile vomit. Instead of green goo is thick, white milk that the cow's lung threatens to dip into, a well-anticipated moment that does not amount to much, quite like a metaphor for the performance itself. For all of its sensory details and attempts at violence, Si Ti Kay leaves only insidious feelings of guilt and embarrassment of bearing witness to these exploits, instead of the desired climax. The audience is driven close to the edge but then left detached, yearning for more unpredictability and boundary-pushing.
For 45 minutes, the audience watches tender embraces between the two men that escalate into violent tussles; moments of stillness (Cheah lying postrate on the floor in nothing but bright red lingerie) jarred by the slapping of his bare buttocks, sensual movements by Siti that shift into contortions and grunts, think young Regan from Exorcist, minus the projectile vomit. Instead of green goo is thick, white milk that the cow's lung threatens to dip into, a well-anticipated moment that does not amount to much, quite like a metaphor for the performance itself. For all of its sensory details and attempts at violence, Si Ti Kay leaves only insidious feelings of guilt and embarrassment of bearing witness to these exploits, instead of the desired climax. The audience is driven close to the edge but then left detached, yearning for more unpredictability and boundary-pushing.
Despite these underwhelming feelings-- perhaps he capitalises on them-- Effendy uses discomfort and unfulfilment to comment on expectations and restraint, questioning dichotomies of gender, pain and pleasure, dominance and submission, and purity and sin. One striking moment in which Effendy expresses such ambivalence is when Haja predictably pours a glass of milk on the kneeling Siti: The idea is distasteful, but the act was surprisingly tender when executed: glistening pearls of milk bounced off her glowing form, rendering her an ephemeral image of beauty and whole-hearted subservience.
While Haja had much control over the moment and Siti juggled gendered trope after gendered trope (the slut, the virgin, the dominitrix), it was Cheah's decisive movements and strong physicality that was refreshing to watch in a play bound by mere flirtations with elaborate concepts.
By the end of the piece, a facade of harmony is restored. As are Cheah and Haja's bowls with beef, and the glass of milk so routinely spilling over, the audience's plate is full from the images and ideas they have been bombarded with. But whether those ideas satiate, or leave one with a glass only half-filled, remains to be seen.
Si Ti Kay by Akulah BIMBO SAKTI at the M1 Fringe Festival 2017 (4th January)
While Haja had much control over the moment and Siti juggled gendered trope after gendered trope (the slut, the virgin, the dominitrix), it was Cheah's decisive movements and strong physicality that was refreshing to watch in a play bound by mere flirtations with elaborate concepts.
By the end of the piece, a facade of harmony is restored. As are Cheah and Haja's bowls with beef, and the glass of milk so routinely spilling over, the audience's plate is full from the images and ideas they have been bombarded with. But whether those ideas satiate, or leave one with a glass only half-filled, remains to be seen.
Si Ti Kay by Akulah BIMBO SAKTI at the M1 Fringe Festival 2017 (4th January)
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