Collected Plays Three

by Alfian Sa'at

Alfian Sa’at explores the Malay identity and racial relations in this third volume of the Collected Plays series. This volume collects plays written and staged in Malay, and translated to English for the very first time. In Nadirah, a young woman is shocked to find out her mother wants to marry a non-Muslim. In Parah, a group of students can no longer ignore the stereotypes and prejudices that divide the races, and the strain it puts on their friendship. In Geng Rebut Cabinet (GRC), we’re transported to an alternate reality where the Chinese are the minority in Singapore. And in Your Sister’s Husband, five sisters try their hardest to reckon with their superstitious, old-fashioned eldest to farcical ends, raising questions about black sheep, outcasts and sociopaths.

Genres: Plays

292 pages, Paperback

Published July 13, 2019

Reviews

[hana ฮาน่า · Rating 4 out of 5]

great book portraying the conversations and conflicts surrounding race, religion, minorities, and most importantly to me - malay-muslimness in singapore/malaysia. i will break down my review for each play below.

nadirah: honestly was mind blown because it felt like all the conversations and thoughts i've ever had in my head were compiled into a single story. my favourite concern highlighted in this play was the one of reverting to islam "for love", and how that has consequences when the person you reverted for ends up abandoning you. and of course, the remaining modern day concern of whether religion and love can be mutually exclusive, especially for the case of muslims and non-muslims.

parah: a story of a group of multiracial friends, whose differences surface when conflict arises - through microracism, stereotypes, and other portrayals. a good depiction of the type of "problematic" sayings and beliefs of other races/cultures, and mixed in with the plot of the literature book. personally, i preferred the issue highlighted by that plot - on whether a literature book studied in school should just be thought of as a piece of literature, or a representative of society and its systems.

your sister's husband: not gonna lie this might've been my least favourite of the bunch, maybe because i'm not familiar with the concept of "traditional malays", "bomohs" and the like. the whole idea of a "traditional" versus "modern" malay was good though, and a worthy conversation to be had. the element of eeriness with regards to kak mas was well done, and i could feel it even though i was only picturing kak mas in my head and not watching the play in real life.

geng rebut cabinet: interesting switch to a malay-majority singapore, and displayed accurately many singaporean concerns over token minorities in parliament. i especially liked the argument of "national interests" versus "minority interests", because if minorities are part of the nation, aren't their issues naturally national ones? i don't know, just my opinion.

overall a great collection of plays. i know plenty of singaporeans who should read this book, or a similar piece of work, if not just to open their eyes to the lives of races beyond their own. it was no doubt humorous and entertaining, however i personally prefer books that spotlight issues and feelings beyond my own. while i may not relate 100% to it due to being chinese-passing and basically enjoying most of the chinese privilege here, (i would like to think) i was already aware of all the topics brought forward in this book - hence, it wasn't particularly spectacular to me, and i would give it 4 stars.

[heeds · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an enjoyable collection of plays discussing social and racial challenges in a satisfyingly subtle way. I laughed so many times; it's stupendous.

[lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was the first play collection that i’ve ever read and it was such a great read. i used to read plays in secondary school as part of literature class and i always enjoyed them, but never as much as i imagined i would watching the plays themselves. this was the first time i’ve read a play and thought “i think i would like this experience more than i might enjoy watching the play”, not because of any deficit in the script but precisely because the plays are written with such sharp character work, because they are mostly dialogue, and because they are originally in malay and i am still macam cina.

its always a wonderful experience reading singlit because there really is something distinct and unique about the singaporean/southeast asian experience that renders our perspectives and cultures disparate from that of the west, or other parts of the east. in GRC, when they were talking about banning the use of traditional chinese instruments in lion dance performances i laughed because that is something that the government would 100% do if singapore had a chinese-minority. the plays themselves were not only something that i was able to understand deeply on a socio-cultural level, but they were funny, witty and most importantly, well written.

sa’at has always been hailed as one of The singapore writers, and now i understand why. tore through this play collection and already can’t wait for the next opportunity to read/hear sa’at’s writing.

[ellena · Rating 5 out of 5]

The plays were very engaging and I might be overanalysing this but in GRC I feel like the form helped me to make connections with reality because it was easier to see past the characters as just characters and more as representations. Anyway I thought it was really interesting and especially if you're more knowledgeable about Singapore's current affairs and general stuff!

[Imran Shah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Couldnt put the book down once i started each play. Alfian is on pointon a lot of the societal issues facing malay muslims. A lot of it is probbaly draw from his own backgorund and experience. This was my first play book, but it was an absolute page turner.
writing in a hurry,

[Tairachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

[Book Review] Collected Plays Three

Just finished this laugh out loud quartet of plays - wow, how incredibly rich, deep, humorous, insightful, introspective, colourful, and unnerving all at the same time. I feel like it really captures (not just Singaporean Malay culture but) Malay humour (if such a thing can be said to exist...?) They explore the interconnected themes of Malay identity, religious identity (of Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, atheism), what it means to be Malay, Chinese and Indian in Singapore and across the Straits (Malaysia), and also the freedom to express and discuss social and religious issues.

My favourite play was Nadirah, which explores the theme of evangelising on campus and what it means to outwardly express one's religious identity. What intrigued me the most in this play was Nadirah's mum character, a Chinese woman who has converted to Islam but later divorced her husband when her daughter was 8, and later falls in love with a Chinese Christian doctor. Religion is complicated, but do we have to choose between religion and familial ties?

In Geng Rebut Cabinet (GRC), another interesting satirical play, we see a strange parallel world where roles are reversed. People are largely Malay/Malay speaking, and MBS and casinos simply don't exist; being Chinese and speaking English are minority traits (most Air Force pilots are also not Chinese). As I was reading, I wondered how much of the plays were self-censored or censored. The lines are simple yet impactful, deep respect to the actors too, I think memorisation and acting is pretty challenging! Would love to see an Alfian Sa'at play the next chance I have. 

"Roslan: ...The words rich and poor are what you call... emotive. So if your financial status is higher than the average, we call that upper middle class. The ones lower than average are called lower middle class. The ones who live in one room flats are called lower lower middle class. But what's important is that all of us belong to the middle class. So we won't have any class warfare.
Catherine (English) That's quite clever. ...
Roslan ... (Malay) We've given memos to the media, so that they won't use words like rich and poor."